Romantik
by Aprill May
Summary: Having no basis in fact: Imaginary. Impractical in conception or plan: Visionary. Intuition, feeling; Irrational. Quistis/Seifer.
1. The Rules

Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to FF8; believe a company called square-enix does. Also, has anyone seen my bank card?

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_"Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling._" -- Charles Baudelaire

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**ROMANTIK// i. The Rules**

_1. The first to say mercy is the Loser._

_2. Cheating is not allowed._

_3. Loser agrees to the wish of Winner. _

"It hurts!"

She had hoped it would come out like a statement; a brief, calm statement that simply informed him that she was in pain, and for the sake of courtesy, he should let go. Instead it was a long, agonized cry that stabbed at his eardrums and prickled along her throat, and it only made him bend _more,_ and twist _harder_, and she would not, and would never, _give._

"You have to say it!" he commanded her. He couldn't let her know that she was dangerously close to reversing the hold, or that her small fingers were pressing points on his hands and wrists that were translating into angry scowls on his otherwise youthful and pink-cheeked face. He felt her nails digging trenches into the back of his hand.

"Say _what_?" she questioned, a determined spark in her blue eyes.

"Cheater!" he yelled, trying to will himself taller for an advantage. "You can't scratch!"

Her only response was to grit her teeth and try with all her might to look for an opening. All she needed was one second, one momentary flash where he would buckle, and he was hers for the taking.

She curled her toes into the sand and glared harder at the boy nearly nose to nose with her, in hopes he'd succumb to the psyche assault of her expression. "You think whatever you say is right," she growled. "It's not that way. You don't tell me what's right!"

To her suprise and dismay, the corner of his lips tilted upwards into a tiny, unbeknownst to him, smirk. "Zell is too scared! I'm right! Squall is too stupid! I'm right! You want to fight me 'cause you don't want me to fight _them_. I'm right!"

With that, he twisted even harder, and a growing knot in her forearm suddenly exploded in a spasm of pain that made the water in the distance behind him rise up in psychedelic patterns over her eyelids. She cried out, but he wouldn't let go, and there was _no way _she'd let him win like this. Her small sandaled foot raised itself from the sand and struck him quickly in the shin. Faintly, she thought she could hear his scandalised cries of 'cheater' somewhere above her right ear. He was still holding onto both her hands, still vigourously twisting and pushing at her wrists.

She had buckled, her forehead now nearly resting on his shoulder as she lost her footing from the desperate kick. Blinded with pain that came in waves up her arms and into her head, she opened her mouth and bit hard into his shoulder. He jerked away in reflex, and she kicked him again, sending them both tumbling into the ground. Sand flew around them, all over their clothes and in their _hair;_ she knew Matron hated when that happened, and they were going to be in trouble, but that wasn't happening _yet._ All that mattered was who winning right _now_...

She splayed her weight over him and yanked hard at his hands, still entwined with hers, pushing upwards and praying that he would just admit defeat, and he'd give up, and she'd win and she'd be the one that was right.

"CHEATING, LYING QUISTY!" he half-shouted, half-gasped in that dramatic way he always did. He coughed, sand settling in the back of his mouth.

"Quistis! Seifer! Both of you stop it right now!" Another voice, this one usually calm and gentle, now uncharacteristically angry and panicked. Little blonde Quistis suddenly felt hands grip into her shoulders like talons, trying to pry her off where she perched, rather like a war hero, on top of her fallen enemy. The adult half succeeded, getting the little girl to fall unceremoniously onto her bottom in the sand. The little boy cried out again, and it was then that the adult noticed their hands were twisted together in some sort of painful knot.

"Quistis," she coaxed, trying to sound sweet through her panic. "Why don't you and Seifer let go?"

"No!" the little girl said loudly, anger brimming behind her blue eyes. There was sand on her face and blood on her lip. "He has to say it!"

"No!" echoed the little boy, still staring daggers at the girl across from him. Were those bite marks on his shoulder? "She already lost! She cheated!"

"He doesn't have to say anything," their Matron continued anxiously. "Both of you – don't have to admit defeat. Just let go – okay? How about if you let go at the same time?"

They both continued to pout and glower at eachother, and Matron was disconcerted to see their knuckles stained white where they witheld their deathgrip.

"No one is winning here,"she said softly. "It doesn't matter anymore who wins."

"Yes it does," Seifer said from his spot on the sand. "I don't lose."

Matron placed her hands over theirs, feeling their skin taut from pulling, and lacking of warmth from the displacement of blood. Almost instinctively, their grips slightly loosened.

"I don't ever want to see you two fighting like that again," she said in a low voice, now in the process of untangling each of their chubby fingers from one another, and they complied without complaint, although she swore she could feel the heat of their ominous stares passing through her head. "Both of you; you do _not hit one another._" She emphasized each word with an alternating pointed glance between them.

"It wasn't hitting," Quistis said in a small voice. Matron looked at her, now clasping each of their hands in one of her own. Seifer had sat up by now, his attention on his battle partner. "We were just ...playing."

Matron looked slightly incredulous. She was used to, and fond of, the sheer ridiculousness of children sometimes, but this was beyond childlike playfighting.

"_This_ isn't playing," she said soothingly, wiping away a tiny tear streak that Quistis hadn't even known was there.

"It was a game!" Quistis barrelled on, not wanting such an injustice of getting into trouble for fighting (when they _clearly_ weren't) to come to pass. "Seifer was trying to get the boys to play; he made fun of them and I told him to stop, and he said he that he wasn't asking me, then I said I'd play, then he said I was stupid and that I couldn't --"

"That's enough, Quistis," Matron interrupted quietly. "Seifer, is that true?" Quistis peered around Matron's shoulder and glared triumphantly at Seifer with a _you're-gonna-get-it _expression smeared across her face.

"Quisty tattletale," Seifer muttered. "Quithty, liar."

Matron gave him long, piercing look. He didn't meet her eyes, instead pulling his aching hands away and crossing his arms in front of his chest. She sighed, turning her gaze to Quistis.

"Go inside and wash up, Quistis. Don't forget it's your big day today," she ordered, giving Quistis a similar look which let her know she wasn't off the hook just yet. Obediently, Quistis stood and let Matron nonchalantly swipe at the sand coating her bottom and legs, and ran up the steps towards the orphanage, stopping when Matron ceased watching her and sticking her tongue out at Seifer in a decidedly immature fashion.

He was still red-faced and simmering when Matron finally addressed him. Matron, a woman who appeared sophisticated and elegant even with children hanging off of her legs and arms – she had the power to calm and diffuse the most difficult of situations, most of the time.

"What did I tell you about hitting the girls, Seifer Almasy," she began sternly.

"I don't hit no girls!" Seifer protested, balling his fists and becoming redder in shades. "Quisty's no _girl_."

"I know and you know very well that Quistis is a girl."

"She _always_ hit me back! And she hits me even when I don't hit her, she hit me when I hit Sefie that _one_ time, and that was an _accident_. I said that I'd play the game with the boys only because I can't hurt girls, and Quisty said she'd play! She said, '_you can't hurt me Thifer'._ Quisty is a girl because you say so Matron, I think Squall and Zell and Irvine are the_ real_ girls," he continued in his tirade. "You're just tricking me 'cause Quisty's your favourite."

In spite of herself, Matron bit back a small smile, twining strands of her long dark hair around her index finger. "I think you're a little confused, Seifer."

"Why am I in trouble and _she's_ not," Seifer mumbled to the ground. "She hit me too! She _kicked_ me," he said, slamming little fists into the ground and grimacing when he felt the ache in his wrist. "And I followed the rules!"

Matron pretended to consider this, absently clicking her tongue and tapping her chin with her finger. "You're still _both _in trouble," she said finally, looking at Seifer with a knowing glint in her eyes. "Are you ready to stand up now?"

In response, Seifer crossed his legs in front of him and rested his elbow on one knee, dropping his chin in his palm. Immediately, he felt Matron swiping at his hair, spraying loose sand across his shoulders. Then, almost systematically, he felt similar actions on his shoulders and back.

"And what did I say about making fun of the way she talks?"

Matron felt him tense under her hands, preparing herself for a tantrum, but all that she got was another grumbled protest.

"She can't go if nobody won."

She paused her movements, thinking. "What was that, Seifer?"

"The rules are, you can't leave unless you win," he said, a little louder this time. Matron's brow furrowed, and her tidying swipes became soft circles on his upper back.

"Because stupid Quisty always wants _rules,_" he added sourly, now looking out towards the water. "She don't even follow them. She kicked me _first_, so that means she _lost_ and you came and told her to leave, and now she's leaving. That's not the rules!"

"Seifer..." Matron trailed off, not knowing where to begin. He was staring at her accusatorily as if realizing she was the reason he was in this whole mess. "I am not telling Quistis to leave."

"Then why is she going?"

"Two people who... very much want to take care of Quistis came to me, asking for just that."

"Why can't _you_ take care of her!? You're our matron! And y-you're giving her away! Give them Squall instead!" he was stammering now, even if he didn't know it, and he was _angry,_ so very angry. "Why do they want her?"

Matron thought about this for a long moment. "They want Quistis to be happy."

"Is she unhappy because of me?" he asked abruptly. "It's not my fault!"

Matron hugged him to her then, and he didn't respond. He was stiff but his limbs slack. She patted his head and smoothed his hair down. "Come on, Seifer," she murmured into his ear. "It's hard to understand now... but just come and say bye to Quisty." _To everyone_, she wanted to say, but somehow, she didn't think it would matter. _In time..._

She let go of him and stood up, brushing sand off of her plain, faded dress, and holding out her hand. When he turned his head away, she began walking, holding her hand out behind her absently. It never worked, trying to scare him into following her with threats of being alone, because he would always just run off regardless and end up being collected by her shortly afterward. He wanted that freedom and independence, and ran – but no one followed him, and it made him angry. And when she would calm him down and take him back to the others, it seemed like he dreaded it; it seemed like he wanted to have something to show for his brief moment of treachery, but never did. It was confusing, with Seifer.

"It's almost lunchtime, Seifer," she said in a warning voice. "We all have to eat together you know." She came to the top of the small hill and waited, looking back towards the large stone house where her husband waited with the rest of the children. By this time, she mused, a tiny smile playing on her lips, he would be more than slightly dishevelled by dealing with the rest of their charges by himself, shirt half-untucked, glasses askew -- inwardly, her smile grew wider.

After a long moment, Matron began to suspect that this bout of stubbornness was heading into the long term, and started back down the hill. Sunlight glinted across the water and she shielded her eyes, wind whipping her hair about in the breeze. She had just opened her mouth to call out for the little boy when she saw him running towards her, sand rising in small puffs where his feet fell. He took her outstretched hand immediately, cheeks flushed from the jog.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him as they walked. He was dragging his feet, his steps making long tracks in the sand behind them. He mumbled something unintelligible in response.

"I heard hungry," Matron continued with a smile. He didn't answer. She sighed.

--

Lunch was surprisingly uneventful, to Matron's surprise, with the only commotion being prior to the meal (they had decided to let each child customize their sandwich to their liking, which had resulted in much taste-in-food related insults such as, 'pickles are nasty!'). Her husband must have noticed her relief as they all ate in relative silence, the sounds of the children's chewing cushioning the sounds of the wind chimes swaying by the door to the porch. He gestured to Seifer, who was sullenly munching on his sandwich and sporting an angry red mark on his shoulder. She could only shrug and shake her head in response, cocking her head towards Quistis, who had her napkin spread in her lap, and was taking exactly one sip of milk per two bites of sandwich.

As usual, when she had finished and collected each crumb on her plate with a wet thumb, Quistis dropped from her seat first and began to collect everyone's plates.

"Quistis," Matron said offhandedly from where she was wiping a stubborn ketchup stain off of Zell's chubby cheek. "You don't have to help with dishes today, honey."

The little blonde girl paused, looking down at the crumb filled plate in her hands and biting her lip. "I want to," she said finally. "You're gonna have to do it from now on anyway, right?"

She stood beside Seifer's chair and reached over to tug at the plate before him. He raised his elbow up to block her hand.

"Not done yet," he said curtly. He could feel her glowering at him, and Matron giving him another Look, but he ignored them both.

"There's nothing on your plate," Quistis pointed out.

"So?" he challenged.

"I'm done, Quisty!" a full, and therefore, happy, Selphie interrupted, waving her plate towards them and spraying crumbs all over the table. Quistis forgot about her impending argument with Seifer and the dirty plates took priority, continuing her circle around the table until only his plate remained, which she ignored.

She put the pile by the sink, then carefully stepped onto the stool in front of it and placed each plate inside one by one, making sure to spray water on each of them. He scrunched his nose in distaste as he observed her, always bound to her procedure and her duty as if the rightness of the world depended on it.

Cid must have noticed Seifer's face becoming a bomb-timer count down because he quickly stood up and clapped his hands. "Everyone full?" he asked.

When six young, round faces with varying expressions of curiousity looked back at him, he smiled and began pulling their chairs back. "Then let's all sit in the living room together," he suggested. "I just finished putting together a new photo album." _The last one._

Matron had just about ushered everyone in front of the television where Cid flashed through the channels, lingering for a bit on the boring news ones where the only words the children caught were 'sorceress,' and 'war,' and other strange words that right now, had no real meaning to them. She paused where she was retrieving the new album from atop a display case, listening to the descriptions of the war happening on the other side of the world. Her thoughts wandered to Ellone, then to Squall, then to all the other children who would never know their parents...

Cid noticed the stiffness of his wife out of the corner of his eye, and changed the channel.

--

Sometime during the laughter that had exploded around the room at a photograph of a red-faced, crying Zell, body submerged under the sand with only his head sticking out, Matron had quietly took Quistis from the room.

Quistis knew this must be about something Important. They were never given free reign of Cid and Matron's quarters. One always had to knock before being allowed in, and everything inside was so crisp and immaculately clean that she was always afraid to touch anything.

Matron beckoned her over towards her vanity, a cherrywood structure with a large mirror mounted atop. Wayward dust was visible by the shafts of light that shone through the room, and Quistis resisted the urge to blow softly through the rays to keep it from settling all over Matron's brushes.

She sat down where Matron patted the cushioned seat in front of the vanity, and relaxed as her warm hands settled on her shoulders. She was entranced by the image opposite her in the streakless mirror, of a little girl, with blue eyes that could stare a hole straight through your head, and the Matron behind her, tall and regal and pretty, rubbing her shoulders and smiling at their reflection.

"We are going to miss you, little Miss Quistis Trepe," Matron said after a long stretch of silence -- the comforting kind.

Quistis beamed at her nickname. It made her sound like a real lady, like Matron.

"Am I never going to see you again?" she asked. The notion made her visibly deflate.

"Don't say things like that," Matron chided. "Everyone that is meant to, crosses paths again."

Quistis tried to look like she understood that statement, nodding in feigned agreement as Matron finger combed her hair and tutted as stray grains of sand disloged themselves and scattered on the floor.

She began to take a brush to Quistis's blonde strands, pulling to the rhythm of the tune the little girl was unknowingly humming. She took a few moments to observe her from above, bright piercing blue eyes peeking out from beneath too long, fluttering dark eyelashes. The bridge of her nose sloped a little longer than usual, ending with a darling, button tip. Her bottom lip pouted considerably more than the top, and they were permanently set in a straight, neutral expression.

The subject of the woman's study looked up at the reflection of the pair in the mirror, feeling scrutinized. Her humming song slowly faded into a slight embarassed silence, a rosy pink stain running the length of her cheeks.

"What's wrong, Matron?"

In spite of herself, Matron chuckled in response, and then again at the confused look that was now crossing the little girl's features.

"I'm just thinking of what you'll look like when you're all grown up," she explained, now seperating her thick blonde hair into sections.

"And you're laughing?"

Matron laughed again, thinking that maybe if she kept on laughing, and smiling, she wouldn't shed a tear in front of the young girl. "I know you're going to be beautiful. All of you will."

Quistis flushed, always unable to handle such praise. She loved it, but once it was achieved, she never knew how to react to it.

When her hair was neatly braided into a fishtail, Matron held a handmirror up behind her head to show Quistis the results of her handiwork.

"Thank you!" she said instantly, wanting to touch it but resisting. It was too pretty to touch.

"One more thing." Matron reached around her and opened the top drawer of the vanity.

Quistis's eyes focused sharply on the item dangling from Matron's hands and her head tilted slightly, something she always did when she was thinking.

"When Cid took you and Zell to town to get your special papers, the rest of us had nothing to do," Matron said mischieviously. "It was kind of hard to get him to agree, but Seifer let us use his marbles for crafts. One each, of course," she added with a smile that crinkled the skin between her eyes.

"Seifer's?"

Quistis touched the black braided ribbons that hung loosely around her neck and felt the weight of the marble pendant drop on her chest as Matron tightened the knot at the ends.

Her smile slowly faded as she ran her fingers over the smooth glass, staring down at the marble there for a moment before her eyes began to cross. It was green, housing a pattern that looked like a tiny, contained explosion.

"He hates me," she said softly, tucking it under the seams of her shirt.

Matron watched her for a moment as confusion and sadness freely reigned Quistis's young face, her lips downturned and her brow furrowed, marring the smooth skin of her forehead.

"One day," the woman said finally, bending to rest her cheek against the top of the little girl's head, "you'll know enough of hate to know what love is too."

Quistis's mouth immediately opened to politely demand an explanation but she was interrupted by a swift, sharp tapping.

"Are you girls ready?" came Cid's muffled voice from behind the heavy wooden door.

Quistis nodded with a small half-smile, suddenly nervous, and left the rarely felt comforts of Matron's quarters behind.

--

Seifer watched in the distance as Quistis dutifully stood by Matron's leg as she and Cid talked to the smiling man and woman in front of them. Almost instantly, he felt that familiar, fiery feeling searing from his stomach and up his throat, down his wrists and to the very tips of his toes.

He recognized Them. He had seen Them before. They came in a little plane that woke them in the morning and sprayed water and dust as it flew past. They had started showing up every few weeks, not speaking to anyone but Cid and Matron, until recently.

That day he had been trying to get Squall to fight him when Quistis would throw herself in between, as usual, and inadvertently get hit, resulting in a scuffle between them. It was then that he saw Them with Cid and Matron out of the corner of his eye, and both Squall and Quistis had gotten cheap shots in on him.

When they noticed he was no longer paying attention to their battle, their gazes followed his own, fixed on the pair with blurry faces and big smiles. They were walking along the edge of the grass where it met the sand, watching the children play. One had pointed, the woman, and Matron had called Quistis over, and obediently she came running. _Of course. _Seifer had rolled his eyes then, and he did it again now in memory of that moment.

Now, she was smiling shyly, and Matron had braided her hair into a thick golden plait with a little white ribbon that swayed when she moved her head. She wore her 'special' dress. The one that she had to put on when Matron took them on special outings to nearby villages, or when they all got to go on the boat that carried them across the ocean when the weather was nice and there was a good breeze. It was white with sea-foam green trim and she only wore it when something 'important' was happening... and today, he supposed, was only important for her since he didn't have to wear his own stupid 'special shirt and tie'. This day was only for her, for her to leave, and no one even cared. They were supposed to be _happy_.

Of course. He never did or felt what everyone else wanted him to anyway.

Years later, he'd tell himself that's why he marched over to the adults, ignoring any inquisitory glances or looks of dread from Matron. Then he'd bury that memory forever somewhere no one would ever find it.

"Can I talk to Quisty?"

Matron looked hesitant, looking from one to the other, but was interrupted by the prospective mother standing across from her.

"She can say bye to her little friend if she wants," the woman said kindly. Seifer gave her a dirty look, which she either ignored or failed to notice.

Quistis ventured towards him and came nearly nose to nose against him.

"Are you going to say sorry?"

"_Thay thorry_ for what?" he asked rudely, emphasizing each lisped word.

"What do you want then!" she responded, annoyed.

"I – You – Stop --"

_Your eyes hurt me when you look at me like that!_

"Stop _what?"_

She put her hands on her hips.

"-- too much honey in your oatmeal," he mumbled.

"What?"

"One teaspoon only, but you use at least three."

"So?" she snapped, suddenly very irritated.

"You get mad when I don't follow the rules but you don't – not always!"

"Shut up, Seifer, know-it all. Know-it-all!"

"Thut Up, Thifer," he echoed, getting angrier himself. "Thupid Quithty, bothy Quithty!"

He had no idea who had started it this time, but she was upon him in a second, fists flying as he only half-heartedly attempted to dodge them. She wouldn't be getting in trouble tonight anyway. She wouldn't be here anymore.

They rolled, and he tried to grab for her hands, successfully catching one.

"One more game," he panted, sitting up, never letting go of her hand. "Same rules, if I win, you do whatever I want. If you win, you can go wherever you want, forever."

"No," she said. "I don't wanna play now."

"Come on," he demanded, pulling at her arm, which had gone slack.

There was a glaring grass stain that started in a splotch of dirt on the fabric covering her hip that streaked upwards across her stomach.

She looked down at her skirt and up at him, equally as ragged. There was a small spark of satisfaction in her eye that she had gotten him as good as he'd tried to get her, but he blinked and it was gone, now clouded over by silent fury and a thin, glazed layer of – sadness?

"Always gotta be you," she whispered, rubbing her knee where she had fallen on it. He glanced over at the raw, red, peeling skin and back over to his own, similarly wounded kneecaps.

"What about me?" he demanded, even as a murderous looking Matron descended towards them. If he glanced over Matron's shoulders he could see Them with their mouths slightly open, taken aback. He gave himself a mental pat on the back.

"It's gotta be all about you," she said, staring at him with her head tilted slightly.

"SO!"

"You two!" Matron's voice exploded above them. "How many times is it today, now?" She knelt beside Quistis and hurriedly picked grass from her now dishevelled hair. "You have to go now, sweetie. It's time. Seifer, let go."

With that, she pulled their hands apart.

Quistis drew herself up and allowed Matron to lead her away towards her new parents and made vain attempts to brush the dirt off of her dress. Her hand brushed against the once neatly folded (and now crumpled) sheet in her pocket and with a sudden start, she pulled away from Matron and began running back towards Seifer, still sitting, ignored, in the grass.

"Goodbye, Seifer Almasy!"

"Bye_ Quithtith,"_ he mocked, scowling.

She looked unhurt. "I know you hate me the most. But you will be okay now, I think. Here," she said simply, throwing a ball of paper at him. He stared at her.

She returned his gaze for a few seconds before shrugging and running back towards Matron. "Leave Squall alone!" she shouted over her shoulder. He shot her with his worst glare, but she had already turned away.

Matron had turned to follow Quistis exasperatedly after she had broke free from her and ran back, presumably, to punch Seifer again. She was relieved when they only exchanged a few words and Quistis gave him a crumpled piece of paper. She took her hand again and led her over to the waiting couple, making a harried face and sighing. Cid grinned apologetically, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

The little girl holding her hand began tugging, and Matron obliged, kneeling to her level.

"I'll miss you Matron," Quistis declared, throwing her arms around the woman and grabbing on to her hair, being careful not to pull too hard.. "Make sure everything goes okay without me! Sefie and Zell need the nightlight, and Squall needs to eat dessert, and Irvy should go to bed on time," she said into her shoulder. "Love you." It was muffled against her dress.

"Bye Cid!" she said loudly. She broke from Matron and moved to hug his leg but he bent down and swooped her upwards into the air, letting go for a split second as she shrieked before he caught her into a great, crushing hug.

"We love you Quistis Trepe," he said softly into her ear as he put her down and smoothed back her hair. "Be a good girl, and maybe one day we'll see you again."

"I'm always good," she replied with a grin. "So you will!"

She bowed and curtseyed to them, a final, polite goodbye, and turned bright blue eyes to the couple in front of her, bowing and curtseying to them. _Hello, new life._

_--_

By the time he had brought himself to get up and shamelessly approach Matron again, everyone else had already approached to say goodbye to Quistis as well. He saw her awkwardly embrace Squall while he did his best to look uncomfortable. Selphie was wailing. Quistis hugged her too. Then she waved, the People with her waved-- and they were walking away.

It was at that moment, that he really, _really_ wanted to tell Matron something, and maybe she could fix all of this and make it normal again.

"Matron, I --" he stopped himself, thinking what good his next words would do. One of the rare times he would do so.

"Seifer," she said softly, gazing down at him with a strange look in her eyes – as though her heart was breaking for him.

"Matron, I know I wasn't supposed to make fun of Quisty's lisp! But I thought that – I thought that if she said the words over and over, I'd fix it!" It all came out in one long breath, and he paused, breathing deeply. "Now she'll talk like that forever."

Matron knelt next to him with her hand on his shoulder as the little plane's engines began to whirr. She gripped a little tighter than usual, perhaps to hold him back, he thought. Maybe she was concerned he would run, and not look where he was going, and fall into the sea, inhale a breath of water, and be so distracted by thoughts of flying upward and freeing Quistis from her airbourne prison that he wouldn't notice himself sinking to his own murky grave.

The other children stood scattered around them looking in awe as they always did at the gigantic, heavy machine getting ready to fly into the air like a big, metal bird. And with a loud, mechanical grunt, and plenty of dust and sea-spray, Quisty was gone.

She was no longer here to try and boss him around and get in his way. Or make sure he followed all Matron's rules and then tattle on him when he broke them. She couldn't defend everyone from his taunts and insults. She couldn't call him _Thifer Almathy_ while perfectly pronouncing Squall as she begged him to join her in whatever game she was playing. And if he ever felt like Squall needed a good face remodeling, Quistis most certainly could not intervene.

--

In the coming months after that day Cid had all but disappeared. But he wasn't the only one. Shortly after Quistis had left, Zell had followed, though Seifer didn't really care all that much. Zell was too much of a crybaby chicken, and true to that, had cried the whole way out the door. Next was Selphie, who was given a gigantic furry hooded parka that she had absolutely hated as a going-away present. Irvine was complete wreck and downer after that, and between him and Squall, every room they were in together found two corners occupied at all times.

He tried to pick fights with Squall regardless, and some days it would work – to a point.

"_Wimp! All you do is talk about is being strong, for who? She's gone, she didn't want to be around you anymore." Seifer shook Squall by the collar with each word. _

_The brown haired boy shook his hair out of his eyes, his expression unchanging. _

"_Well, nobody wants you either."_

One night Seifer had gone into the girl's old room and destroyed it, kicking Selphie's forgotten teddy bear across the room – she'd left it and was surely wailing about it with every breath...wherever she was. He jumped on Quistis's bed with his shoes on and punched her pillow, long washed and covers changed. He punched it until his arm was sore and he had collapsed on the bed, feathers sticking all over his clothes and hair, before being found and awakened in a messy heap by a concerned Matron, a Matron who didn't even have the guts to be angry. She would place him in her lap and sing a little song that made him sleepy.

"Time to go Seifer Almasy," she sang softly into his ear. "Get your special shirt and tie on."

"Where are we going?" he asked sleepily.

"A new big adventure," she replied. He knew he was supposed to be excited about this news, but not when Matron did not sound excited at all -- she sounded apprehensive, and almost...fearful.

In the name of adventure he was herded onto a ship for an agonizingly long time with no one but Squall to antagonize. His bags had already been packed for him while he was asleep, and during that time Irvine and a few others had taken off seperately on a plane he thought he had dreamt.

"Are we going to Ellone?" Squall was inquiring, tugging on the pant legs of one of the adults standing near the front of the craft.

"Are you _ever_ going to stop asking that?" Seifer asked loudly from where he was looking over the sides of the ship at the ocean in the distance, watching the lighthouse get smaller and smaller as they moved away from the orphanage...and home. He was already a bit dizzy from a turbulent attempt at a nap on a moving structure and not in the mood to listen to Squall trying to be 'strong'.

"Strong people don't whine for Sis," he shot at him.

Squall looked at him, expressionless, and disappeared below deck. Seifer clicked his tongue restlessly, tired of looking for pebbles or splinters of wood to toss to the water below. He was stuck on a vessel where he recognized nobody and nothing, and after many hours, would arrive at a disturbingly large, oddly shaped building. He was tired of this constant shift and sudden change, and he was too young to understand why, why, _why_ this was happening and _now_.

Maybe he had lost, Quistis had cheated and managed to win and what she wished was for everything to _change_, for her to go away with Them, and for him to be sent with Squall on a boat ride full of people he didn't know to an island far away where a giant, strange looking building loomed in front of him, like a mutated monster that would swallow him whole.

She wanted him to be led like a stray dog up not-quite-finished concrete steps and through half-installed turnstiles, down long curving hallways and into this flourescent, white-walled _cage_.

Two big suitcases with coloured handkerchiefs tied around the handles were sitting against the wall, large stickers with his name scrawled across them stuck to their fronts. He glared around the room, at the three beds all equidistant from one another, to the large table and three chairs opposite them on the other side of the room. He scrunched his nose at the smell of just-dried paint, and newly mounted light fixtures that had just been installed into freshly spread plaster. Everything was so...new.

He didn't agree to this. It wasn't fair.

He threw himself into the nearest bed with his face in the pillows, turning his head only when his blasted, needy lungs burned for air. He stared at the wall, breathing heavily, for what seemed like hours, until his body gave way to fatigue, and his mind begged him to as well, and he slept, dreamless, hoping he'd wake to a time where everything happened the way he was promised it would.

_1. The first to say mercy is the Loser._

_2. Cheating is not allowed._

_3. Loser agrees to the wish of Winner. _

"_There," Seifer said, presenting the sheet of paper to Quistis for approval. She glanced over it, brows furrowed in concentration as she took the paper from him and brought it nearly to her nose. _

"_Fine," she said shortly, and grabbed a nearby red crayon, holding it in a fist and writing her name with a flourish at the bottom of the sheet. Seifer followed similarly, signing his name in large, black, blocky script that took up most of the remaining space. She picked up the sheet then, and folded it twice into a neat square._

_They ventured away from the porch and onto the warm sand by the ocean. He quickly scanned the area around them for anyone wandering too closely, or any adults called Cid or Matron. Satisfied, he met Quistis' defiant expression with a smirk, holding up his hands in invitation. _

"_What happens if you win?" Quistis asked suddenly. "Even though you won't," she added as an afterthought._

"_I don't lose, Quisty," he replied, twining his fingers with hers. _

_//_

**NOTES// **I have not written anything for a Long time. Obviously. The game they're playing is called 'Mercy' if it was not evident. You have to hold your opponent's hands, and bend them back or twist them until someone is in so much pain they yell out mercy. Then the other person wins. :)


	2. Brokenfone

**Disclaimer:** I do not own anything. Don't think the two people that read this are really concerned either way.

-

The year Seifer was to turn ten he was inspired to follow a group of teenagers who were training beyond Garden's walls. The term had yet to start, and these were some of the students that had remained over the summer break. There were three boys and one girl, laughing and pushing one another playfully, dragging their weapons along carelessly behind them. Seifer, unnoticed by the four, followed at a distance, carelessly unarmed. He was not yet of age to be outside of Garden unaccompanied, but had convinced the gatekeeper he was catching up with the group that had just left seconds before.

Their laughter melded together harmoniously in the distance ahead, and Seifer felt a pang of something, perhaps envy, in his chest. Balamb Garden was a massive, sprawling structure, and he often roamed its halls in a quiet awe as the high ceilings and bright lights shrouded him in insignificance. Lately, however, the walls had become strangely... confining... and the lights had melted into grinning flourescent faces that offered taunts of being a rule-following drone, of being one of hundreds that milled about in the institution with a set schedule and a set path, never daring to break it.

Perhaps that was why his inspiration dictated him to venture beyond the walls this afternoon. He no longer wished to nourish the humbling feeling that he was but a tiny speck of existence on this planet. He was growing, and getting bigger, and stronger, and there was no longer the feeling that he was hardly anything, but instead that he was _something_. He was going to be something more than Garden would allow him, but he had to do something big, something amazing, to prove it. Already, he was pushing against the tide that tried to assimilate him – he was disobeying orders, walking beyond the gates alone, because he knew that no one else of all that Garden contained would desire to accompany him.

A loud scream shattered his thoughts into alertness and he quickly crept towards the nearest smattering of boulders, ducking behind the largest one. The group had encountered what seemed to be a large lizard-type monster. He watched, eyes transfixed as they seemed to anticipate each other's moves, formulating strategies on the fly and working under intense pressure. Was this what he had to look forward to? This kind of ... camaraderie? He scoffed inwardly.

The girl, a skinny brunette with her hair in a braided bun was wielding two iron fans. Seifer watched closely as she ran along the monster's side, holding out the blades to create two deep slices along its belly. The monster hissed in furious pain, rearing its head back and whipping around --

_The tail,_ Seifer thought as the girl flicked the fans upward, blood dripping off the blade edges. _She's going to trip over the tail..._

The second cadet, a boy taller than the girl and muscular, with similar coloured hair and almond shaped eyes, yelled something to her and drove his weapon, a long spear, straight down into the lizard's twitching tail. He twisted the spear, making sure it pierced into the dirt beneath, and looked around wildly for the girl.

Seifer saw her dart away when the boy had impaled the monster's tail with his weapon, but he was now distractedly looking around for her.

_She's okay_, Seifer wanted to shout out, _she's just on the ground nursing a cut – it doesn't look bad at all! Look out!_

He couldn't say anything. What could he do? He'd distract them all and they'd all be injured, or worse. Seifer swallowed. The boy with the spear...he looked the oldest and the strongest, but the girl and the other two cadets were too far away --

Seifer winced as the lizard's teeth sunk into the boy's calf. Surprisingly, the boy didn't scream or yell, but dug his elbow into the reptile's eye, though it did nothing but aggravate the creature and incite it to snap its jaws together – and sink each sharpened tooth further in...

The other two companions had mobilized themselves by now. _Idiots_, Seifer thought angrily as one ran forward to assist the girl and the other moved to the monster and sliced vigorously at its neck with his hook swords, frustratedly blowing his dark fringe out of his eyes. The oldest cadet freed himself from the monster's jaws and collapsed not far away, grimacing and trying to assess the damage.

"Brother!" the girl was wailing, running towards the boy and reaching towards his leg, only to have her hand swatted away.

"It looks like poison," she continued in a shaky voice, and Seifer squinted, trying to focus on the wound on the boy's leg. It looked deep, with blood pouring openly from neat puncture wounds along the muscles in his calf.

"Come on," one of the other cadets ordered, a boy with a mop of dirty blonde hair adorning his head. He was rubbing his temples furiously.

"Should I go back to get some help from Garden?" the girl asked anxiously from where she sat beside her brother.

"We'll carry him back," said the blonde, motioning for the other boy to stand opposite him. They both knelt down and crossed their arms underneath the injured cadet, lifting him shakily and beginning the awkward trek back towards Garden. The girl followed behind them, her brother's spear hanging off her back, dragging on the ground and leaving a miniature trench in the grass.

Seifer waited until they were out of sight over a small hill and peered curiously out from his hiding place.

He took tentative steps towards the steaming corpse, the freshly made wounds still falling open. The other Garden students had long gone by now, and he found that they had left his mind as well.

"_Little boy..."_

Seifer jumped, his head whipping around to look behind him, beside him, upwards, anywhere there could be something close enough to talk to him. He turned his attention back to the corpse, trying to remember what his books said about scavenging useable parts from slain monsters. He'd take back a part as a makeshift trophy, and show all the other boys in class --

"_Little boy, don't you want my power?"_

There was a strange, pulsating energy emanating from the dead carcass, and even as he held his hands over the flesh, he could feel the warmth under his hands, the smell of fresh blood filling his nose. He narrowed his eyes, sensing something in the crimson rivers that poured over the wound and into the grass – something dark, and ominous, lifting from the spill and wisping towards his hands --

_-- and he was running, the ground turning black behind him, through the green grass just in front of the orphanage. There was a blonde girl there, with her hands on her hips, scolding him, her voice sounding distant although she was standing just before him. _

"_What are you doing? Stop it."_

"_Run, stupid!" he yelled at her, wondering how on earth she didn't notice the _world _disappearing beneath his feet. Sweat gathered at his back and his shirt clung weakly to his skin. She made no movement or action that showed she had even heard his rude command._

_She was glaring, and her eyes were so bright – too bright. The ground was nearly gone beneath her feet but he was still standing, but not her, she was slipping – she was surely going to fall. So he reached out, grabbing for her hand, or her shirt, but the black was enveloping her too, beginning at her bare feet, running in veiny patterns up her legs. _

"_What are you doing!" Seifer screamed into the dissolving blackness around him, clutching his head. _

"_Merely having an exchange," the disembodied voice echoed all around him. "You should learn this now, little boy. Power is never, ever free."_

_He whipped his head around again and almost bumped into the torso of a tall, dark haired-woman. He was horrified to notice that this woman was either seven feet tall, or he had shrunk in size to that of a five year old boy. He chanced a glance upwards, but the woman's face was covered in shadow, and he was helpless to stop her as she turned him around, forcing him back towards the girl with the icy stare. Clawlike fingers curved into his collarbone and he screamed again. Black had taken most of the small blonde's legs and waist and she was becoming nothing – the veins had snaked up her neck and spiraled around her eyes, a swirl of black in her pupils disturbing the cold ice around it._

"_Your memories..."_

"_Seifer Almasy." The girl's mouth was moving, and her voice with its obvious lisp reverberated in his ears and echoed all around his head as though it were hollow. Cool, neutral, and still as a frozen pond she'd once warned him about stepping onto. "You better leave Squall alone!"_

_  
"Give me the memories and I'll give you power..."_

"_What the hell?" Seifer shouted into the ever growing darkness. "Why?"_

_The girl's face became enveloped in black until all that was left were two blue pinpricks of light that blinked twice like exploding stars before disappearing completely. A soft grey outline emerged in their wake that became a figure about his size, except their posture was hunched, shoulders slumped in a half-defeat._

"_Why... why would you want these memories? They're nothing..."_

"_Resisting?" _

_Eyes became visible on the shadow for a split second, before shifting in and out of focus. "Need to be strong?" the voice said, lacking emotion but holding the similar echoing quality the girl's had had. "Why? You have no one to be strong for... no one to protect."_

_Seifer flinched, still held by the black talons on his shoulders. The grey glow walked through him and faded into the darkness. He chanced a look upwards, his eyes meeting the shadowed visage of the woman or creature holding him... their eyes ... they were so _red.

"_Get out of my head!" Seifer screamed, buckling down in a vain attempt to get out of the woman's clutches, and run, just run anywhere and in any direction and wait to be collected. If he was a good boy, he'd be collected._

"_GET OUT!"_

In the waking world, an nine-year-old Garden stray screamed.

"Oh Hyne!" the cadet exclaimed to the two running behind him.

"What in the world?"

"He's going nuts..." the girl whispered quietly. She thought of her brother, deposited at the gates like a war casualty before they had to run back outside with renewed urgency, pushing their bodies to function with strength they would pull from nowhere.

The gatekeeper obviously wasn't joking. Even though his expression had said that much, they didn't want to believe it; a little boy had followed them out of Garden and they gathered that it was the one that was currently writhing over the carcass of the monster they had just barely killed, blood smeared all over his clothes, and to their horror, a _thing_ was attached to his body. Its form was indistinguishable, save for two taloned feet that anchored itself to the boy's shoulders. Appendages extended from its body like a tipped bottle of ink that poured rivulets of energy into his chest, the tips of his fingers, his eyes...

The second, mostly uninjured cadet lunged forward, holding out his blades in an attempt to knock the creature clear off of the boy's head. To his own surprise, his weapon passed straight through the apparition, which disappeared in a blurry gust of wind that made his skin prickle and his blood go cold. Unable to stop his charge, he ran clear into the monster carcass and toppled over it in a pile.

The female cadet took soft, yet urgent steps forward, reaching out to the little blonde boy who hadn't moved even as her comrade's sword had rustled by his hair a nay inch above his head.

"Are you okay?" she demanded, the shakiness in her voice betraying her poorly hidden fear. Aside from the blood all over him, he looked relatively unharmed besides what damage he had done by clawing at himself. Her fingertips had just touched his frighteningly cold cheek when he flinched away and focused sharp green eyes on her. Instantly, she moved away, a hand on the bladed fan at her thigh.

A small gasp escaped her as his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed at her feet.

"We have to get him back to Garden, now!" the second of the male cadets yelled, rushing over and hauling the boy upwards, gesturing wildly at his still dazed friend to assist him.

"He's going to go into shock, come on – come ON!"

The two boys hauled the escapee upwards, and began their second trip back to Garden, forgetting momentarily that they were in for a world of trouble, that their friend had sustained an injury, and that now they had to deal with this kid that was twitching in their grasps. They did however, come to a mutual concensus later on in the infirmary that this was indeed, the worst day ever – and school hadn't even formally began yet.

--

"Yuan's okay, right?" the boy on the doctor's left prodded.

"Yeah, he's pretty tough," the boy on her right answered. "He'll be ready in time for the exam for sure."

"I was asking the doctor," the first boy replied snidely.

"I'm right _here_, guys, and I feel fine!" the injured subject of inquiry said with a scowl, reaching out to swat at his friends who were just out of his reach.

The doctor in question half-smiled, creases forming in her brow that would, in the future, become permanent. "You boys are still foolish for doing what you did. You should have retreated right when the encounter happened."

"Well, we thought we could handle it!" Cadet Yuan argued from the cot, waving his arms around. "There were four of us --"

"Of which you were the most experienced, experienced enough to know that your two underclassmen buddies and your _younger sister_ may not have been the most prepared cadets to fight such a monster," the doctor finished for him in a steely tone. "But I won't be lecturing you about this; trust me, you'll be hearing from your Instructors soon enough."

The boys all hung their heads and caught eachother's eyes, sharing a pained expression for what lay in store for them.

"Still, you should have seen it," the blonde cadet said with a wry grin. "This idiot tried to cut that thing up and when it turns out he hit nothing, he flipped himself over a dead monster that's nearly to his waist."

"That's supposed to be surprising?" Cadet Yuan snorted from the cot. "We've seen him in class trying to impress the girls --"

"Shut up," their victim said stubbornly as his friends cracked up. They were stopped short, however, by a sharp shush from Doctor Kadowaki, who indicated a female cadet on the other side of the room, hunched over on her own cot and staring at her hands. Her left leg was moving incessantly, the iron fan around her thigh clinking against the metal of the bedframe.

"You," she motioned to the bedridden boy, "might want to talk to your sister, although right now would probably not be a good time," the doctor sighed, holding a hand to her temple. "I'll need her report later on, when she's ready."

The girl's brother stared at the top of her head, her bun unravelled and two messy braids falling across her chest. His expression softened.

--

A week later, she returned. The doctor found her standing outside the infirmary doors, perhaps deciding whether or not she really wanted to come inside.

"So, is he going to be okay?" the young female cadet asked as she marched into the infirmary, folding her arms in front of her and doing away with all previous hesitation.

"The worst of it is over, yes," the older woman reassured her. Their gazes both turned towards the window to the golden haired boy tucked tightly beneath white cotton sheets, his head moving every so often with his dreams.

"You didn't know him, right?" the doctor said without looking at the girl beside her. She full well knew the answer, having gone over all the reports and testimonies from her companions that day.

The girl shook her head. "No, he just... he just followed us. We barely had killed that monster. And the gatekeeper told us we were supposed to have one more, so we backtracked, even though my brother was hurt. Then we saw him, and he was out of his mind..."

She turned a troubled face towards the doctor, her bottom lip quaking, though she seemed not to notice. "Why would he do something like that? It makes no sense!"

"Well, sometimes people do what makes sense to them," Doctor Kadowaki said quietly.

"He's been here long enough to learn the rules of Garden. And now...now look..."

"Well, this particular cadet hasn't been very privy to Garden's rules..."

"Then he doesn't belong here," the girl snapped. "I'm sorry," she apologized after a measure of silence.

The doctor looked undisturbed by her sudden outburst, instead speaking calmly in return. "It's not my decision, Cadet Yuan. Nor yours. Or even Headmaster Kramer's, from what I gather."

Her face contorted into a frustrated glare as she focused on the boy lying in the bed on the other side of the glass. "Idiot," she muttered without thinking.

The doctor gave her a sharp look. "Perhaps it would do you better to go spend some time with your brother," she suggested. "They'll be here soon."

The cadet continued to stare intensely at the form in the infirmary cot. Her gaze hardened, then left him for the last time.

"He'll never be a SeeD."

The young girl took off down the corridor with a precise, controlled gait, flicking the blades of her fan aimlessly as she went.

--

-

**ROMANTIK**// **ii. Brokenfone**

**-**

**--**

Seifer set the counter in his head to one as he stood outside the sliding doors to his classroom, waiting for his Instructor to open it for him. That was one day, the first day, and the first late he would have for the year. If he strained, he could hear the muffled voices on the other side, probably speaking of the new term, old rules he could care less about and the new ones he would learn to not care about either. Finally, just as he had raised his foot to kick at the door out of anxiety and boredom, it opened and granted him access.

"Late for the first day of the new term, Almasy," his instructor's bored voice greeted from his left. "But not too late to sit down and _learn_, and I use the term loosely, with the rest of us. Again. For another term."

Seifer would normally appreciate the instructor's dry, sarcastic way of dealing with irksome students, if it wasn't usually him on the receiving end. Unfortunately, most of the time Seifer did indeed irk him, and therefore concluded that Instructor Dunne was an ass. Here comes another great year.

The late student scowled and strode over to his desk, making a show of dropping his bag and scraping the seat back roughly on the linoleum. He was about to heavily plop down in his chair and indulge in oft-visited mental wanderings of tall, awkward Dunne in concert with his fellow monotonous moustached tenors when he noticed something different about his peripheral view of the front of the classroom.

"What's this?" he said aloud.

His eyes travelled appraisingly along the new student sitting at the terminal in front of him. Blonde, with hair pulled back into a off-centre ponytail, wearing a simple white shirt and red hooded sweater.

The subject of his inquiry seemed to shrink under his glare, the shells of their ears tinging pink.

"If you were here on time, cadet, you would have been here for the introduction," Dunne said in a monotone. The man was perpetually bored, it seemed. "Quistis, if you may."

Slowly, the student rotated in their seat, and stared up at him with bright, piercing blue eyes that reminded him faintly of the glass marbles in a corded sac on the desk in his quarters.

"Hello," she said confidently, though he could detect the slight nervousness in her voice. "I'm Quistis." She extended her hand in a rather formal gesture.

He stiffened, his gaze moving from her resilient stare to her slightly parted lips, down her arm to her outstretched hand and all the way back up again. Her voice cut into him like a hot knife, splitting his skin and allowing feelings of sudden anger to boil to the surface.

After a few tense moments in which the students around them exchanged several odd looks and snickers, Quistis slowly lowered her hand. Seifer, however, didn't seem to notice or care about their current atmosphere.

"Hello _Quistis_," he greeted her, and she shivered involuntarily. He was still staring at her, and everything around them became slightly blurry. Heat began to spread along her back and she resisted the urge to fidget with the bottom hem of her shirt.

"Seifer," the Instructor said in a warning voice.

"Sorry, Instructor," the boy called Seifer Almasy said, not sounding very sorry at all. "But since when have we ever had new students start in higher level classes; is she a transfer?" he demanded to know.

"Even though it's really none of your concern --"

"I think it is my concern, since I've only been here for _years_ --"

"Quistis has been here many times during the summer taking all the required placement tests," the instructor carried on even as Seifer tried to overpower him vocally, failing and reduced to scowling angrily.

"She did quite well, well enough to be placed into this class."

"Yeah, I'm _so sure_ --"

"Seifer," the instructor repeated, settling into old habits he'd tried his best to forget over the break.

Quistis mouthed the name to herself silently.

Seifer put his hands up in a sign of mock defeat, sitting down in his chair and dragging himself forward towards the terminal while his instructor sighed to himself as a form of mental preparation.

"Now, how was everyone's summer break?" the Instructor asked with an exaggerated flourish and mock enthusiasm. An equally sarcastic splattering of noise answered him.

"Good to know. So after a short refresher for those of us who are still a little rusty," the Instructor said from the front of the room, looking pointedly at certain students. "We'll head downstairs for a little exercise."

The instructor looked geniunely excited for the first time as a chorus of collective groans rose up around him.

"Come on, books out. Health and anatomy, how we've missed you!"

The sound of pages flapping and books slamming on desks roused Seifer to immediate boredom that not even cartoon pictures of people's insides could remedy. He looked up at the new girl in front of him, who was staring at her book oddly and casting furtive glances around her. A vindictive smile crossed his lips.

Who did she think she was anyway? Waltzing into class and trying to shake his hand and be friends with him. He smirked at the thought. Nothing's that easy. You don't just prance through Garden's gates and take a few tests that basically made all Seifer's time spent there meaningless. It wasn't fair. _Just look at her now, _he thought, his eyes narrowing. Her shoulders were tense and she held the book at an angle that shielded her face from the instructor, still casting glances in every available direction. _She __can't even..._

"Why doesn't New Girl read aloud?" Seifer called out, leaning back in his seat. A few students rolled their eyes. Instantly, her back straightened and her eyes raised to the front of the classroom.

The instructor sighed. "Are you volunteering, Seifer?"

"No, I'm volunteering _her_, if she can manage to do it." He sneered at the back of her head.

"Are you having trouble Quistis?" the instructor asked her, his brow furrowing in concern.

"Umm," she began in a small voice, cursing Seifer for noticing her.

"Maybe she can't read!" Seifer said loudly, as though he was making an observation as mundane and obvious as the lights being on. Several students quietly chuckled at this. Quistis was doubly sure the stupid boy had a grin a mile wide on his face and resisted the urge to turn around and smack it off his face.

"I think they might have mixed up entrance evaluations," he continued nonchalantly. "Right now there's a literate cadet in the Pre-Garden class --"

"I need glasses to read!" she snapped, shooting a dirty look over her shoulder. "Sorry," she apologized quickly to the instructor. "I usually wear reading glasses, it's just that I don't have them with me. "

The instructor sighed and motioned her over to his desk.

"Cadet Trepe, you've been here since the summer break, correct?"

Quistis nodded feebly, trying to ignore the quiet chatter that was going on behind her.

"I know, I just – I didn't know..."

"How have you been reading?" The older man asked her, looking down at his papers and scrawling something unintelligible on one of them.

"I have a magnifier. I left it in my room. I think I misplaced my glasses during the move here," she explained.

"Well, all you have to do now is see the doctor in the infirmary," the instructor told her. "I'll be sending her a message, just head down there within the next three days and she'll take care of you. Wait any longer and you'll end up on the backlog, so don't forget."

Quistis bobbed her head again and returned to her desk, making eye contact with Seifer who was flicking through the pages of his book with disinterest. When Quistis paused before turning to her seat, he raised his eyes to hers and grinned. She looked away abruptly, and rather ungracefully fell into her chair.

--

Evaluation tests at Garden had shown that Quistis was prepared academically to join students her own age, but was understandably behind in physical, magic, and combat training. Even with all the refreshers and crash courses she had tried to cram in during the summer, she was still placed at a slightly lower level than everyone else from that morning. No matter how much everyone assured her she had done remarkably well with her summer training, she still felt a little unfulfilled -- as though she could have done better.

_A field of new faces this time, as opposed to a room of them_, she sighed as she made her way out onto a stretch of grass just outside Garden, roped off and monitored by staff.

Rows of targets sat in varying distances across the fields, and a few dummies and hanging metal boards were set up opposite, obvious blade marks and areas of wear and tear visible.

"Quistis, the new student!" an energetic Instructor bounded towards her, the stiff material of her red uniform tie flipping around her chest with her movements. She made a show of extending her hand to grab Quistis's, shaking profusely. "I'm so excited to be your weapons instructor! We don't really get many new students that start at your level!"

Quistis managed a small, modest smile.

"I'm Instructor Holly," the petite woman said, stretching her arms above her head and pulling her ponytail of dark hair forward to rest over her shoulder. Her eyes looked unusually large and Quistis figured her to be the first instructor she'd encountered to put fake eyelashes to use.

"Since you're new, I want you to use this first class as observation. All the other students are pretty much refreshing themselves anyway. However, if I might make a suggestion," the instructor continued with a wry smile. "Some have put in just a bit more work than others."

Quistis walked alongide Instructor Holly on the makeshift pathway, attempting to make eye contact with various students, yet finding her friendly attempts unrequited.

"-- and once you feel comfortable, you will choose your weapon of specialization, though you don't really have to declare it until you take your SeeD exam," Holly was saying in her musical voice. "Though it's best to choose early on. You have to be able to use meelee, ranged projectiles, explosives, firearms – oh, but I'm getting ahead of myself," she grinned at Quistis's overwhelmed expression. "I'm just remembering all the things that I looked forward to as a cadet. There'll be other things too."

They had come to the row of students throwing ranged weapons on the other side of the field, with Holly loudly greeting the supervising Instructor there with a gleeful hello that made Quistis wonder if the two hadn't seen each other for quite some time. She let her attention wander over the students practicing, her gaze drawn to a lone girl working on the last target.

She was about Quistis's height of four and a half feet, with a head of pale, silvery hair. Learned discipline and seriousness seemed to radiate from her, and Quistis gathered up her will to approach and introduce herself.

"Hi," Quistis said hesitantly, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. The light-haired girl seemed to sense her presence but chose not acknowledge it for a good minute or two. Slowly, she turned around and looked her up and down subtley, and Quistis was startled to see that one of her eyes was covered by a patch, no matter how much of her hair was swept over it. "I'm Quistis."

"WEAPON?"

Quistis blinked. There was a number of ways that question could go. Should she ask her to elaborate?

"I don't have one," Quistis confessed, deciding that that's what she was asking about. Her eyes travelled down the girl's arm to the ring shaped blade in her hand.

"You have a chakram?"

The girl's straight line of a mouth quirked slightly in what could be considered a proud smile.

"YES."

"Could I watch you use it?" Quistis asked, trying to sound airy and casual.

The girl complied, holding the metal ring in her hand and swinging it lightly before tensing and throwing her arm forward in one sharp movement, releasing the chakram into the air.

Quistis watched as it floated in a soft arc across the field, just missing a target in the distance and landing with a gentle plop onto the bed of grass. A slight crease formed in between her eyebrows as she looked from the target to the thrower, who looked back just as neutrally in return before setting off towards the chakram in order to retrieve it.

When she had returned, Quistis was waiting, dusting invisible grass off of her jeans and looking eager to tell her something.

"May I see it again?" she asked timidly, looking from the weapon to the girl's cool expression.

She raised her arm.

"Except, maybe --" Quistis's voice broke through her concentration, reaching out to point to the hand holding the chakram and feeling the girl staring at her. "Maybe you could spin it a bit."

"SPIN?" she repeated.

"Yeah," Quistis affirmed, making the motion with her own hand. She had the feeling that if she made any move towards physical contact with the girl that weapon would be spinning towards her face.

She looked highly skeptical, but proceeded to twirl the ringed blade on its inside edge, followed by a thrust of her arm that propelled the chakram off into the distance where it veered to the right and cut into the ground, sending a few blades of grass flying up like sparks. The girl crossed her arms in front of her chest, then turned to Quistis who was bubbling with a contained sense of accomplishment.

"GOOD. THANKS," she said finally.

There was a bloated pause where the blonde girl played with the hem of her shirt, fighting a brief inner battle.

"Do you mind if I ask you something?" Quistis began hesitantly.

The girl's visible eye narrowed slightly.

"ASK."

"Well...why do you talk like that? I mean, with one or two words all the time."

Quistis knew immediately that she had asked the wrong thing. The other girl stiffened, rising to her full height and pursing her lips.

"I mean I – well I used to have this problem talking too," Quistis carried on in a futile rush. "I had a lisp – do you know what that is? I said words with 's' in them funny, I still do sometimes. But I got made fun of alot and that made me not want to talk."

The pale hair that fell across her patched eye moved through the air as she abruptly turned away from Quistis, prepping her weapon for another throw. Quistis was somewhat pleased to see that she had retained the form they'd achieved together, and the silver hoop flew through the air even farther than before, cutting sharply into a straw target, a puff of formerly settled dust rising from where the blade struck.

Quistis clapped her hands in spite of the stony gaze bestowed upon her in response.

"That was amazing!" she praised.

The recipient of her commendations nodded, preening, and Quistis made a mental note that giving the girl such recognition was more than welcome.

"Are you going to have to go and get it every time?" Quistis asked as the girl made to go retrieve the weapon.

"WIND MAGIC. LATER," the girl said with a shrug. She considered Quistis for a long, analyzing moment before holding out her hand. "FUUJIN."

Quistis tried not to look too ecstatic at having, not without some effort, won her over. "Fuujin," she repeated, returning her handshake.

"I'm sorry about what I said before – if I offended you," she blurted out an apology. "I hope that maybe --"

She stopped in the middle of her sentence, seeing Fuujin's good eye focus somewhere above her shoulder with intrigue.

"What'd you say?" A third voice boomed behind her.

Quistis was less than pleased to see the curious countenance of the boy from that morning. The one that delighted so very much in her discomfort.

"What is it to you?"

Seifer threw her a disinterested glance, choosing not to answer.

"Hey, Fuujin, what'd she ask you?"

Quistis' jaw dropped at the realization. This girl was Seifer's friend? Well then, there was no point left in hoping anymore.

"Why are you even here!" Quistis interrupted, all (questionable) politeness forgotten. "I'm in a lower level class!"

"Yes," Seifer said with a languorous pause, looking ever like a cat having gotten his fill of cream against the wishes of his master. "You admit it after all."

Quistis tried to still her fists that she had just noticed were quaking with surpressed anger while Fuujin looked on with interest.

"MANNER. SPEECH," she responded to her friend's earlier inquiry.

Seifer raised his eyebrows and turned to Quistis. "Why do you want to know?"

"I was just – wait, why should I explain myself to _you_?" she spat out, then directed her speech to Fuujin, quickly siphoning the venom out of her voice. "I didn't mean to pry, I just --"

"She doesn't wanna talk like other people do, so leave it alone," Seifer cut her off, more than a little irritated at being dismissed so nonchalantly.

"I didn't mean it like that!" Quistis argued. "I was helping --"

"Hey, you don't need help," Seifer told Fuujin, who was decidedly staying neutral. "New Girl just wants some friends." He took pleasure in rattling her as she did in dismissing him.

"Why don't you go get Fuujin's chakram and maybe she'll think about it," he taunted.

Quistis was fuming silently. Who did this guy think he was? First, he had embarassed her in front of the whole class this morning and now he was throwing her own attempts to belong back in her face. She knew how to choose her encounters well, she thought sarcastically. Or rather, one horrendous one chose her repeatedly.

"SEIFER," Fuujin said suddenly, drawing his attention away from the other girl. "LEAVE IT."

She started to walk away towards the target, her footsteps even and steady on the grass.

"Hey, wait! Come on, Fuujin," Seifer called after her, obviously confused.

"Oh, hi Cadet Almasy!" came the excitable voice of Instructor Holly, though it was tinged with a slight standoffish quality. "I thought I had gotten you out of my class for good – it was an agreement when I passed you, wasn't it?"

Seifer ceased his movements to follow Fuujin and instead narrowed his eyes at his former instructor, who was regarding him with one hand upon her hip and pointing to the upper year class on the opposite field. He muttered something unintelligible under his breath Quistis didn't quite catch.

Apparently, Holly caught it since her plastic grin stretched and made her smile lines become apparent. "Yes, you still do need my permission for clearance, unfortunately. Another thing I ironed out in the agreement."

This statement apparently meant something to Seifer, as he settled for merely glaring at the petite instructor before squaring his shoulders and stalking off to the opposite field. The older female caught the eye of the upper year instructor and pointed to Seifer, shaking her head and laughing as he only shrugged in response.

Quistis turned away sharply, not wanting to be near Fuujin when she came back, and began moving in the opposite direction from which Seifer had come. The more distance put between them, the better.

She was near the meelee weapons now, and her attention was drawn by the loud clang of metal upon metal. A young boy practiced there, holding between his hands what appeared to be a gunblade, something she'd only seen in pictures around Garden. With immense concentration, he ran forward and struck multiple times at a piece of hanging sheet metal, sparks flying at the contact. Light brown hair hung in his face and his eyes were blue, bordering on slate, and currently narrowed, fixated at a point on the board. His hard stare never wavered as he brought his blade down multiple times in front of him, a succession of sparks following every hit.

Quistis put on bright, friendly smile when he paused to catch his breath. "You're amazing to watch!" she said sincerely. "Is that a gunblade?"

Instantly, annoyance flitted across the boy's face. "Yes."

"Well, you're really talented."

His shoulders stiffened. "I practice."

"It must have taken a lot of practice to become that good," Quistis continued, feeling a sudden urge to praise this boy.

"I'm Quistis, what's your name?"

He kept his stare focused on the practice board in front of him, swinging the weapon in controlled movements.

"You're like me," Quistis said finally. "I don't like to talk about myself alot either, but I'd like to know more about you."

The boy suddenly stopped his movements and turned to fully regard her for the first instance since she had initiated conversation. Quistis sucked in a small breath, her eyes alighting as they took him in. She stared hard into his eyes, trying to force the same recognition she felt, to bring to light the same memories she had...

"I'm Quistis," she repeated. "What about you?"

"Squall Leonhart," he answered, methodically, as though that would satisfy her line of questioning and she would leave, the transaction completed.

In a move she would later deem as stupid, she brushed off his cold demeanour and took his answer as an invitation to continue talking to him.

"I'm new here, it's my first day and it's been kinda tough so far, everything's so different from the way it was before I moved, but I'm getting used to it." She knew she was rambling, but barrelled on anyway. "I'm supposed to be a year ahead, but I haven't done enough weapons training. You're really good, like you said, you've spent alot of time practicing.." she trailed off as his eyes darted towards the training board, and knew she had lost the battle.

"I'm sorry, but I'm training and you're distracting. Would you mind going away?"

Quistis fought the hurt look that crept onto her features, and failed miserably.

"You want me to go away?"

She seemed to disappear right in front of his eyes, as he simply turned back towards the practice sheet.

"But, Squall... I just want to --"

_I think I know you... I know it's you_.

"It's me, Quistis Trepe," she said confidently, putting her hands on her hips in what she believed to be an aggressive stance. "I'm sure I know you. I know someone named Squall."

He stared at her again, his expression closed and his eyes appearing as though someone had closed shutters behind them. "I don't recognize you at all. You must be confusing me with somebody else. I've been at Garden all of my life."

She was a hair's breadth away from stomping her foot childishly. "I know you, Squall Leonhart! Don't pretend like you don't – like you haven't --"

"Don't cry over something like this," the boy said flatly. "I'm telling the truth, I don't know you or remember you. I haven't seen you before in my life."

Quistis let every word ring in her ear with conviction, feeling foolish. Perhaps she was mistaken. She mulled over this thought for barely a minute when she heard _his _voice, and winced. It was the one she thought had been sent back to the other side of the field with his class. She shut her eyes tightly, already feeling the heat prickling the back of her neck.

"What's wrong Leonhart?" Seifer drawled, digging his weapon -- what she presumed was a gunblade, but styled slightly different -- into the ground point-down and resting his weight on the handle. "Too many _adoring fans_ ruining your concentration?

Squall didn't even look back at the blonde boy behind him, merely continuing to practice his moves as though Seifer taking potshots at him in the background was a common occurence.

"Needed more people to tell you how great you are, eh Leonhart?" he drove on when Squall paid him no heed. "Like any amount of praise could fill that stupid head of yours --"

"If you want to be told how good you are, Seifer," Squall replied casually, emotionlessly, as though he were speaking to a dog nipping at his heels in hopes he'd be entertained, "maybe you should practice."

Seifer tensed, taking his weight off of the hilt of his weapon and tightening his grip around the handle.

Quistis looked between them with a slight frown creasing her forehead, still hurt over Squall's blatant dismissal of her. Now, listening to Seifer try to provoke Squall caused new feelings of anger to flare inside her.

"Did the girl want to see your gunblade?" Seifer sneered in a honeyed, mocking tone. "Were you going to let her touch it?"

"If they wanted to see a _real_ one," Squall shot back, his eyes indicating Seifer's similarly styled weapon, which Quistis could now see was a replica, its edges rubber instead of the metal of Squall's.

Seifer's hand recoiled from the handle of his training gunblade as though it had suddenly become corrosive, leaving it buried in the dirt, lolling slightly to the left. "Because they're scared!" he snapped, as if he had been faced with such a comment before. "I _know_ too much. I know what I'm doing!"

"Really? I don't think you do. I think they didn't give you a real gunblade yet because you have no control... you'll hurt people."

"Yeah? Is that what you think? If people get hurt it's their own fault if they get in my way. You're by-the -book Leonhart. You learn what they teach you and don't do what they say not to do – I know better, I'm better off teaching myself _new_ things --"

"He's right!" Quistis declared hotly. Both boys turned their heads to her.

"Squall is right," she continued in a biting tone. "I'd never trust you with a weapon – it's a wonder you're even in the year ahead of him!"

"_New Girl_," Seifer snarled, rounding on his interruptor. "Stay out of this – it has nothing to do with you."

"Excuse me, but I think it just might, just a little bit," she snapped, moving in front of Squall and blocking him from Seifer's view.

"She's only been here a day and she's already in love with you?" the boy opposing her said with a disbelieving chuckle.

"Leave him out of it, I'm the one talking to you now!"

"I don't want to talk to you," he said slowly, as if he were talking to a child much younger than him. "Move."

"Why do you always make it this way?" Quistis asked him angrily. "This morning, and now, and – and when we were younger..."

His eyes narrowed dangerously as he made a sudden move closer to her, filling her vision and invading her space.

"You don't know anything about me ... you're crazy."

He raised a hand to her shoulder and roughly pushed her away, and as much as she tried to hold her ground she stumbled to the side. Squall had taken a defensive stance, holding the flat side of his gunblade towards his approaching enemy.

"Don't be stupid Seifer," Squall said with a hint of exasperation in his monotone voice. "You're already going to be in a lot of trouble."

"Shut up, Leonhart," he responded, grabbing the blunt edge of his sword and pushing it away. "Drop the weapon and fight then. I don't need a _real_ weapon to show I can beat you."

Squall resisted, pulling his gunblade away, and Seifer found, as he knew he would, that they were almost evenly matched. _Almost_...

With a flash of blonde hair and icy blue eyes that now shone with fire, the girl Seifer thought he'd disposed of was in the middle, her hands on either one of their wrists.

"Stop it!" she shrieked, frustrated that she was barely able to pry away their hands or loosen their grips from the gunblade. "Stop it Seifer!"

He flinched, glaring sideways at her, but nevertheless grit his teeth and pulled, trying to twist Squall's wrist.

"One of the instructors is coming; someone already went to get one," Quistis hissed out of the side of her mouth.

At these words, Squall's hands automatically loosened.

With one last struggle, Seifer plucked the gunblade handle from Squall's weakened grasp, and pulled it towards him sharply, knocking into the girl beside him in the process. They both toppled to the ground, Squall looking at them with that slight frown that seemed permanently etched on his face.

The blonde girl quickly sat up and shook away the slight stupor that the fall had caused and whipped her head around to see Seifer, sitting on his bottom in a slight daze. Anger and recollection clouded her mind and her arm, seemingly of its own volition, swung around and shoved him to the ground and held him there by his shoulder. Her breaths came fast and hoarse, and she poured every ounce of venom she could muster into the glare she christened upon him. That was when she noticed he wasn't paying attention. His head was tilted slightly, his gaze to the arm holding him.

Quistis stared at her forearm silently. She had felt the cool edge of the blade pierce her skin as Seifer snatched it from Squall, and it didn't hurt, it merely felt strange – and even kind of exhilirating. Of course, at that moment, she'd paid it no heed, thinking it might just been a scratch, but looking at it now, with blood pouring in streams out of the wound and pulsing beaneath it, the realization settled in – and it _hurt_. He was still looking as well, and she met his eyes, green and cloudy, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Seifer, you're an idiot," Squall said curtly, taking in Quistis's cut and pulling her up by the elbow and towards her Instructor.

--

"Thankfully, it's mostly a surface wound, so scarring will be minimal," Doctor Kadowaki, a plump, rather fussy sort of woman with faded brown hair in a haphhazardly done bun, explained to her. She ended her sentence with a snip of medical tape. "I always hope that first days back will be injury free, but that's a futile hope with this place, isn't it?" she said with a crooked smile.

"It was my first day." the young girl said quietly.

"Didn't go too well, I take it," the doctor said knowingly, patting her injured arm softly.

"People already don't like me, some already _hate_ me," she said to her knees, the loose hairs of her fringe falling in front of her face.

"Don't you dare give more than one second of your time worrying about Seifer Almasy," Doctor Kadowaki chided her, bustling around the room. "You're not the first one he's sent in here, and he himself has been in here nearly twice as much."

Quistis considered this as the older woman rifled through an assortment of clipboards hanging off of scews on the wall.

"You are however, the first female cadet he's sent in with a physical injury, so naturally he's going to get disciplined for this." The doctor held her gaze for a long moment. "As are you," she added.

"Me?" Quistis said indignantly, bristling.

"The report from Cadet Leonhart here shows you two had a physical altercation, which continued even after you were hurt," Kadowaki explained.

New feelings of confusion sprouted in Quistis's mind. _Squall? He'd condemned both her _and_ Seifer? But clearly, Seifer was the instigator of it all. And she had been helping Squall, defending him even!_

She was forcefully reminded of Seifer's barbs at Squall. _"You're by-the-book.."_

She remained silent.

"But that's only a technicality," the doctor continued. "Since Seifer was, of course, the one who provoked you, his punishment will be somewhat more severe."

"So if I fight him back, I'll always get in trouble too?" she questioned, trying to keep the argumentative edge out of her voice.

"Maybe avoiding him would be a better option?" the older woman hummed as she pressed down the taped edges of her patient's bandage.

"That won't work," Quistis said softly, but the doctor didn't hear her.

"Hmmm... Trepe, Quistis... I understand you also need a pair of glasses?"

"Yes, I --" Quistis began, but was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.

"Doctor Kadowaki," the muffled voice said on the other side. "Idiot Kintall fell off the wall the wrong way again, yes I did say _again_, and he's coming down in about ten minutes --" the person paused as the doors slid open during their rant, but continued, unaffected, " -- in about ten minutes with Winheight and Sorcha carrying his stretcher, the moron."

The speaker then strode into the room like it was a living room in their house, and Quistis took in the person's full appearance. It was a cadet, obviously years ahead of her, with medium length hair that was in a tight ponytail, braided and tied over in a loop. Her face, with deepset brown eyes and lips that curved upward, was set in a lofty sort of smirk, as though she was constantly amused at someone else's stupidity. _Which she probably was_, Quistis duly noted.

"Cadet Yuan," the doctor said in a tone that suggested fondness but was also tinged with exasperation. "Could we please not insult our fellow students?"

"Not if it's the truth," the girl said teasingly, clasping her hands behind her back and grinning. "Cards while I'm here?"

Cadet Yuan's gaze moved quickly around the room, then noticed the lone patient seated on top of the examination table. Quistis shifted slightly, crinkling the paper underneath her, and she inwardly cringed at how loud the sound was in the silent room.

"What happened to her?" the cadet said casually as though Quistis couldn't hear her.

"Oh, you know," the doctor began absently, putting away Quistis's file. "Seifer."

Instantly, the girl's sharp features hardened, and her lip curled downward in obvious distaste. "Another stupid kid," she bit out. "Sorry to hear about that," she said to Quistis, who tossed her a weak smile in return. "Anyway, he'll be down in a second, thanks doctor," the cadet said in the same airy tone and left before she could get a response.

"I suppose that game will have to wait," the doctor said with a hint of disappointment lining her voice, busying herself clearing clutter for the next injured student. "You're free to go then, Cadet Trepe. You'll be back in a few days, and we can do something concerning those glasses, okay?"

Quistis nodded silently and left the way Cadet Yuan had, through the doors sliding open to a wide hallway. She walked slowly, venturing to one of the large windows and running her fingers across the sill, being careful not to touch the glass and risk streaking its clear surface. The courtyard was teeming with students, some eating lunch outside in the mild weather, or with books spread open across tables with pages held open by rocks. A few were laying about on the grass or under trees, lazily throwing cards onto a mat and laughing at jokes she couldn't hear.

_This is Garden,_ she thought as she took in the scene before her. _I will belong here. I will make this my home._

_-- _

"Do you know how much trouble I'm in?" Seifer groaned, slamming his fist down on the round table and making all the food on it jump. "It usually wouldn't be this bad, but it's because _your_ instructor told mine to push for a bigger punishment." He made a face at Fuujin as if it were her fault such a thing had occured.

"Why?" asked a third, bulky boy, whose cadet jacket fit a little too snug on the shoulders. "What happened Seifer?"

"QUIS--"

"Leonhart and the stupid new student," Seifer cut in, glaring ominously at the boy seated across him as though his hair were blond, his eyes blue and his skin multiple times lighter. The image shattered as he threw a confused glance at Fuujin.

"I still don't --"

"FIGHT--"

"I have to clean three of the equipment rooms," Seifer interrupted with anguish as though a horrible injustice had taken place.

Fuujin's good eye rolled.

"Then I said, 'well how come _New Girl _isn't getting punished?' "

"HELPING," Fuujin tried to explain, but Seifer brushed it off.

"Helping _who_? Helping _what_? Nobody, that's what! Anyway, it turns out she is getting punished after all. We can always count on good ol' Squall to tell the genuine truth." He sat back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest, a self-satisfied smirk settling itself across his mouth.

The burly boy opposite them was now thorougly dumbfounded but nevertheless would not give up, giving the female at the table an encouraging smile. She cast a dark look at Seifer, who was about to raise his arms in a full blown rant on another related topic, and made a cutting motion across her arm with her opposite hand; the boy's eyes widened with every new slice.

"Seifer! Don't kill yourself over this, man-- ow!" The table had not so inconspicuously jumped. Fuujin developed a sudden interest in a group of rowdy upperclassmen across the courtyard.

"What?" Seifer implored, his scowl passing between his two friends. "Well? Raijin?" he prodded, focusing on the weaker minded of the pair.

"Fuujin's sayin' you like her – ow!" The table jumped again.

"I do _not_ like her!" Seifer barked, his fist connecting with the abused table again. "It's her first day – and she's never been in Garden, and they put her in my class – _ahead_ _of you_," he added, as though it would surely sway him into following his line of thinking."Then she tries to be all buddy-buddy with me anyway, and also with Fuujin," Seifer nudged her and she stiffened, looking away uncomfortably.

"Really? What did --"

"HELP--"

"_Then_ I got rid of her – you didn't thank me Fuujin– and I see her off to the side, admiring Leonfart with big hearts in her eyes. 'Ooh you're so talented,'" he said in a high pitched voice that his friends supposed was Quistis'. "So I go over to tell Squall off for being a show-off and he made a crack about my fake," he scrunched his nose as he said the word, "and I challenged him, but New Girl tried to spare him the embarrassment."

He paused dramatically to observe his audience, finding Raijin watching him with rapt attention, but Fuujin looking bored, as she had seen the true events of the ordeal take place from a distance.

"Anyway, I overpowered Squall and accidentally knocked into New Girl, and she hurt herself on the gunblade."

Raijin leaned forward in his seat and dropped his jaw into his palm.

"You cut her?"

"I did not cut her, she cut herself," Seifer corrected, ignoring Fuujin's poorly stifled cough. "Plus, she shoved me too!"

"After you cut her?"

"I did _not _--"

"INADVERTENT," Fuujin supplied, as if settling the matter.

"She's crazy anyway," Seifer said offhandedly, his eyes trailing away from his friends to somewhere in the distance. "She talked as though she knew me..." he shook his head briskly. "Whatever. She knows how things are around here now. She should consider it a real welcome," he grinned in a rather feline way and crossed his arms behind his head, "an initiation."

"We were new once, ya know," Raijin pointed out.

"RUDE," Fuujin quipped quietly. "UNDESERVED."

"Girls don't like that kind of stuff, ya know," Raijin said, nodding sagely. "You gotta be all, acting like you don't want to talk to them and then they'll want to talk to you more."

Seifer was starting to look more and more enraged, but his friend didn't seem to notice and carried on blindly anyway.

"Maybe that's how Leonhart does it, cause I always see girls giggling over him in the hallways. Maybe that whole nice guy finishing last thing is true," Raijin shrugged, considering this new thought.

"SEIFER, NICE?"

"You have a point there."

"Hey!" Seifer interrupted with a scowl. "I'm the nicest guy ever!"

Raijin tried to maintain a serious expression, but ruined it by cracking up.

"Wait! Why are we even talking about this? I couldn't care less about her or her stupid girl crush on Squall."

"EXAGGERATION."

"I know man, no one likes Squall, ya know? Just stop throwin' her around, and --"

"I didn't _throw her_!" Seifer all but bellowed, thoroughly frustrated. "What – and I don't like her!"

"I'd be afraid for her if you did," Raijin said seriously. "I mean, if the way you try to get a girl's attention is by trying to cut her arm off," he looked slyly at Fuujin out of the corner of his eye, who was making a motion with her hands as though she were choking and shaking someone. "What will happen if you really fall in _love_ with her or something, ya know?" He made a motion as though he were waving a sword in Fuujin's face.

"Instead of doing that yawn thing where he puts his arm around her, he'll try to punch her in the face."

"CAVEMAN."

Seifer wished he were sitting on the opposite side of the table so he could swat both his friends upside their heads.

"Shut up you guys," he snapped as he grabbed his lunch from his tray and stuffed it into his mouth.

In spite of themselves, Raijin burst out into loud, raucous guffaws, that rose in harmony with Fuujin's stoic and controlled coughs.

--

**NOTES//** Yes, I think that they teach regular things at Garden too. I have problems with using O/Cs but they're only there for certain...things. Broken telephone is that game where you get in a line/circle and whisper a phrase to the person next to you and you go down the line until you get to the person at the end, who says it aloud. Usually it is way different from what the first person intended. Has something to do with the effects of gossip and human recollection and what-not. Enjoy, you two.


	3. Human Knot

A swivelling whirr signaled the rotation of the security camera to one side, where it lingered depressingly before the drone of the mechanics began anew.

Though she couldn't see where it was pointing, encased in its black orb, Detainee Quistis Trepe waved towards it anyway, a sardonic expression crossing her face before sighing audibly. She made a show of wringing out the sullied rag she was currently using to polish Balamb Garden's extensive collection of weaponry to a reflective shine.

At first she had wondered why her Instructor had thought it wise for a ten-year-old to be alone in a room full of weapons for three hours. She realized it on her own, when she experimentally picked up a gunblade and longed for a split second to swing it around wildly, that such temptations were easily resisted. She couldn't do it. Instantly, paranoia conjured visions of Instructor Dunne or Holly or Doctor Kadowaki or _anyone, _really, in her mind, poking their heads in the door and instantly demoting her to some sort of newly created negative rank for remedial cadets like her.

Quistis Trepe was simply not built for disobedience. She supposed it was a parameter that was tested for. She wondered what her score would be on that test.

She sighed tiredly as she clumsily placed a lance against the wall where it promptly fell aside and knocked over all the other weapons surrounding it. Opening her mouth immediately to apologize to the nonexistent witnesses, she settled for mentally berating herself. After looking around the room quickly in spite of the closed door, she fell heavily onto the bench in the centre of the room, looking at the camera again and feeling rather silly.

Knocking exploded on the other side of the door that sounded not unlike the rapid fire of a machine gun. When the perpetrator heard no response, the handle began to turn slowly. Quistis raised an eyebrow at it, then glanced at the mess she had created of the pole arms just to the left of the door. However, she found her nervousness unwarranted when the lock on the door engaged and her would-be visitor stubbornly began to twist the handle repeatedly.

"Hey!" The knocking had returned with renewed vigour. "Are you in there, Quistis?"

She moved closer to the door. "Who is it?"

A hesitant pause. "Just open up, would you? I've got to deliver something to you."

Her curiousity piqued, along with a tiny sense of foreboding creeping up her spine. She hesitantly eased the door open a crack, enough to reveal that her visitor was much taller than her, didn't quite fit his cadet uniform quite right, and was holding some sort of parcel in his hands.

His large brown eyes widened considerably, mirroring her own expression, and he took the opportunity to try and wedge his large foot in between the door and the frame. Quistis' hands instantly began to push against the door in defense.

"Ow!" the boy whined, and Quistis relaxed the force she was applying – until he then tried to jam his shoulder into the slim space.

Slightly annoyed, Quistis planted her feet firmly on the ground and leaned, almost casually into the door, grabbing onto the bars of a display rack and occasionally gripping it for added leverage.

"Okay! I give up!" the intruder choked out, still trying to worm his way through the slowly closing air pocket Quistis had allowed him.

"Who are you?" she asked him coolly. "How do you know my name?"

He was now trying to stuff the box in between the space as well. He also appeared to be holding his breath, as he had realized every exhalation just allowed Quistis' weight to close the precious breathing space she'd bestowed upon him.

"I'm a friend – of Fujin's -" he wheezed. Quistis reached over and took hold of the rack again, pulling slightly.

"Ugh," the boy responded.

"Yeah? And she wanted you to deliver something for her?" she asked sarcastically, glancing over her shoulder at the camera behind her in the corner of the ceiling.

"Yeah – I -"

"Why couldn't she do it? How did she know where I would be -"

"Seifer – ah -"

Quistis stepped away abruptly from the door and let the boy crash to the floor in a messy pile. He inhaled deeply, large hands resting on his chest and the box he'd meant to deliver a few feet away, forgotten.

"I'm – I'm sorry," Quistis said awkwardly. She reached out her hand as if to help him up, then diverted the motion into a slow motion windmill swing of her arms, moving backwards to sit on the bench behind her.

"Are you okay? I heard a ton of stuff falling over, ya know?" the boy asked, having caught his breath.

Quistis pursed her lips, unsure of how to interpret such questions. After all...

"The spears that you're lying on," she answered. "And yeah, I'm okay. And no, you don't have to put them away."

Fujin's friend had stood to his full height now, and sheepishly set the staff he had picked up back on the stand. He turned around, surveying Quistis with supressed excitement she couldn't quite comprehend due to the overall peculiarness of their current situation.

"Fujin wanted you to bring something to me," she reminded him, indicating the box on the floor, which he scrambled to pick up.

"Yeah," he said, nodding profusely. "I'm Raijin, I'm her friend."

She tilted her head slightly, keeping her hands on the bench on either side of her. "A friend of Seifer's too, then?"

"Yup," he confirmed casually, as though this information wouldn't mean that much to her. "He's the one who said you were also getting punished. So we figured you might be doing something similar."

"What's he doing?" Quistis asked.

"Cleaning. Like you, but the equipment." Raijin looked around the room for the first time as if just noticing it was filled with every type of melee weapon imagineable, and his fingers twitched involuntarily. "Wow, that's why it was locked I guess."

Quistis smiled wryly. "Well, I do get a check-up soon since I'm scheduled to be done in about a half-hour," she informed him. "So if you want to laugh at me opening up a package of time-release stink bombs, I'll do it now."

"It's not anything bad, ya know. I think," Raijin tried to explain, thrusting the box at Quistis and hitting her with it in the arm. "She had to talk to her instructor for permission to get it, so don't think it's anything bad. Seifer doesn't know about this. At least, I don't think so," he added.

Quistis surveyed the boy above her, tall, dark-skinned and bulky. Her eyes ran over his shoulders and down his arms to the box he held out in front of her face, just beneath her chin. She stared into his eyes, seeing no malice, and reached out and pried the box from his grasp, settling it on her lap.

"It better not be anything bad," she threatened, "or I'll ... I'll -"

She sighed. Really, what could she do? Threatening to go to her instructor, while a legitimate action, seemed so futile and childish. Raijin seemed to realize this as well and only grinned at her, for all of his size looking remarkably incapable of harm. She deftly unclasped the snaps on the box and opened the lid, her brow creasing in slight confusion.

"I think she wants to make up for the whole thing with Seifer, ya know?" Raijin supplied.

"That wasn't her fault," Quistis mumbled to her bandaged arm. She looked back to the box at the weapon resting inside, doing a double-take.

"She said you were only being nice, but Seifer was all riled up – that didn't have much to do with you either," Raijin said as Quistis opened her mouth to talk. "She tried to tell him afterward, but he wouldn't listen to her, ya know?"

Quistis brightened a little at this, looking down at the carefully coiled whip nestled inside the foam cushions. It was perfectly polished, smelling of freshly serged nylon and moulded rubber.

"Fuujin's really good with people's movements, ya know?" the boy said with a hint of pride meshed in his tone. "She suggested I use the staff, and so far, I think I'm doing pretty good with it."

Quistis arched an eyebrow at this. "A whip? Why?" she heard herself ask.

He only shrugged in response, as if such a thing wasn't that important as long as she was now armed. "Something about your wrist? I dunno," he furrowed his brow in thought, holding his chin between his thumb and forefinger. "Oh, I remember!" he exclaimed in triumph. "You reminded her of someone."

She blinked. "Any idea who?"

"Don't think so. All she said was GET WHIP. QUISTIS. Or something like that."

Quistis stared at him for a moment before taking the explanation for what it was worth.

"It's not a real one, it's a trainer, so you'll need to get cleared before they graduate you to a genuine chain or leather whip," he explained with an excitement lining his voice that surprised her.

She gave him a small, sincere smile before she returned to running her fingers slowly along the edges of the box. "Thanks," she said softly.

"No problem," Raijin responded, suddenly sheepish. He scratched the back of his head, causing his ill-fitting jacket to shift upwards. "Well, I gotta go. You're almost done so Seifer should be too in a minute – maybe I'll talk to you some other time?"

Quistis watched as he sidestepped the still fallen weapons on the floor, and all but bolted from the room, leaving the door to click quietly into place.

.

.

**ROMANTIK/ iii. Human Knot **

**.**

**.  
**

Raijin marched down the same hallway four years later, trailing behind Fujin, proud, sure of her steps, every movement sharp. She stopped abruptly, raising an arm and knocking on the door there three times, clearly, and concisely.

"SEIFER. PUNISHMENT COMPLETED?"

The door flew open and Seifer appeared, a stormy glare on his face as he held his cadet jacket away from him and shook it out, creating a steady stream of dust. They were all a little older now, but only Fuujin seemed to have grown significantly, with her height almost equal to Seifer's, much to his chagrin.

"My eyes," he groaned as he threw his jacket over his shoulder and began to grind his palms into the offending body parts. "The dust. The sweat. Can you believe it? Don't they have staff to do this kind of work? This whole thing is a conspiracy!"

"You mean your weekly detention?"Raijin asked innocently.

"Don't even get me started on _that_,_" _Seifer said bitterly, shoving his hands in his pockets and stalking down the hallway towards the cafeteria. "And always with a bunch of _idiots._"

"Well, there was that one time," Raijin began, a contemplative look on his face, completely missing the dark look his female friend cast him.

"The one and only time," Seifer finished for him with a scowl. "Because -"

"IT'S HER," Fuujin declared with a roll of her good eye.

"Right, Fuujin," Seifer said, elbowing her good-naturedly. "Something about this place always wanting to hold me down, isn't it?"

"No one likes the truth, ya know," Raijin echoed an oft-repeated sentiment of Seifer's.

"Now you get it," Seifer grinned, clapping his friend on the the back. They let Fuujin walk slightly ahead of them, leading the way to the cafeteria.

.

.

The notice about the compulsory field evaluations appeared three days before summer vacation commenced. Held in invertals during the year, they were evaluations only in name, and served more as unofficial exams that determined what levels you would be placed at at the start of the new year. Decisions could be appealed within a certain time period, and as Quistis knew quite well, crash courses and refreshers were always offered during vacation time depending on availability of instructors.

On an early morning on her way to the training centre, Quistis lingered in front of one of the monitors merrily flashing a ticker of relevant news, and currently, the class assignments for the upcoming exercise.

Her eyes had just flickered over the line that indicated the scheduled date for her class when she heard footsteps approaching, echoing on the flooring. She averted her gaze nonchalantly to the side, the approaching figure coming into focus.

She quickly stared back at the screen, the sharpness of the picture suddenly painful. Her hands tightened around the handle of her weapon case, and she shifted uncomfortably. Did maintenance just turn the heat up? Since when did being hot make the back of your neck prickle?

He was walking towards her... was he just going to pass her by?

_'I mean, I'm the only one in the hall, right?'_ one side of her brain mused. '_So he should at least say good morning or something.'_

_'Yeah, but weren't you just trying to see who was coming out of the corner of your eye so you could gauge whether or not to greet them?_' the other side argued.

Quistis furrowed her brow, shaking her head._ 'I don't care whether or not he says hi,_' she thought angrily to both voices.

_'Well then, he's just going to walk-on-by,_' a new, singsong voice sounded.

'_He is_,' Quistis mentally agreed in dismay.

_'Then. Do. Something.' _

_'I don't care.'_

_'Oh, but I think you do -'_

"Hi," Quistis said with a sudden, unbecoming twirl. When her target wasn't behind her, she mentally slapped herself and rotated further, trying not to look embarassed. He'd stopped walking, but he hadn't turned around.

"Hi, Squall!" she said in a slightly louder voice that sounded horrendously squeaky to her ears. He looked at her. If she hadn't wanted to look awkward before, the jerky wave that accompanied her greeting wasn't helping matters.

It was early enough that she could correctly assume he hadn't been up long. His chestnut hair was falling messily in front of his face, as though he had given up on stubbornly pushing it back, and his face was set in the same usual, familiar frown, except now it was laced with the last remnants of sleep. Quistis smiled – because of a completely unrelated reason, she reminded herself. It was a summer vacation! A week off!

"Morning," he greeted.

"Are you going to the training center?" she asked, looking pointedly his gunblade slung over his shoulder in a case and his casual mode of dress.

He moved his head slightly, and to everyone that had studied him carefully enough, it was his version of a nod.

"I'm on my way too," she told him, not bothering to wonder where her sense of propriety had gone and how to find it again. "Maybe we could practice together?" she tried not to sound too hopeful, "and offer critique, feedback, stuff like that."

She was unknowingly balanced on the tips of her toes and slightly bouncing. It happened every time, regardless of whether he was giving a dull presentation at the front of the class, or she was asking him what he thought of today's lunch menu – she hung on every word, every breath, every rare change of facial expression.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, shifting his weight from one foot to another. "I'm sorry Trepe, you know how it is - "

"I like to train alone," Quistis said with him. Automatically, her mouth curved into a smile and she laughed briefly. "I'll see you later."

He gave her another slight nod and continued the rest of the way down the dormitory hallway, albeit a bit faster than before as if to make up for the delay.

She sighed, an echo of her earlier giggle escaping her lips, bitterly.

Every time it ended the same way. Every time, he'd walk away from her.

.

.

_ATTN: Seifer Almasy_

_ID: 41270_

_Mr. Almasy, _

_Academic administration regrets to inform you that due to your results in compulsory class GOV4A, module C, your instructors have agreed in a 3:1 vote to require repetition of the entire course, pending results of your annual field evaluation. _

_Please be diligent._

_Academics Office_

_._

_.  
_

The notice's unfortunate recipient crumpled the sheet between his palms as he stalked angrily in the direction of the training centre to see if Fujin was checked-in.

He wrinkled his nose in distaste as Squall Leonhart moved into his line of sight, and paused to throw a glare in his direction. In what Seifer deemed was a smart, yet wimpy move, Squall ignored him and continued on in his drab existence. Seifer smirked to himself and revelled in his own superiority, the reason for his foul mood momentarily forgotten as another figure came into view as he turned into the hallway towards the training centre.

"Study date in the training centre, Trepe?" he said with unhidden glee. "By the way Leonhart was running back towards the dorms I'm guessing he thought you'd be whipping the monsters."

She didn't walk away like her supposed study partner had, so Seifer prepared for a good row. Quistis was only one to disappoint maybe half the time he challenged her; it always depended on who was around.

"Academic Notice, Seifer?" she said sweetly, peering at the crumpled paper in his hand.

Instantly his temper re-ignited as he took in her slightly mussed appearance, complete with a stupid self-satisfied half-smirk that could have mirrored his if she could actually pull if off. He acted as though he didn't hear her, instead just looking at her instead as though she was taking suggestions for improving her cooking. His penetrating gaze ran over her face, then down her arms, stopping at the angry red welts that had sprung up upon her flesh.

"Geez, you're supposed to be able to hurt others with your weapon, not yourself," he sneered. When she responded by shrugging her shoulders casually the wince that formed on her face did not escape him. "You got yourself more than you got Squall, maybe that's why he looked so down."

He mentally patted himself on the back as she began to glower. He could tell she was fighting it, but couldn't stop the redness rising onto her cheeks.

"Studying," she said calmly. "You should try it sometime. It would help you avoid those kind of notices."

"Wouldn't you love to know that's what it is," he shot back. "But you think you know everything about everyone so I wouldn't put it past you to think -"

"Module C?" Quistis interrupted him, a hard edge to her voice. "I believe I got top marks on that one."

"Should that mean something to me, Trepe? Because I already know pets and ass-kissers get top marks in everything."

"I would have -"

"You _had_ the nerve to want to tutor me," Seifer finished for her. "I don't _need_ anything from you. Especially from you, Trepe. Go ahead and beg to train with Squall all you want but _never_ try and offer me your tutelage again."

"Seifer, you're the -"

"But wait," he interrupted her. "He doesn't seem to want your time."

"Harrier asked me to help you," Quistis said in a frighteningly calm manner. "Because if you didn't pass the test for module C, you would be in danger of failing the course. I believe his exact words were, 'Quistis, please take the time to help Seifer. He just needs a little bit of your time.' So you're wrong on two counts, Seifer. I didn't want to help you; and you needed it. From me."

He clenched and unclenched his jaw, the paper in his hand thinning due to being repeatedly mangled. He wanted to yell, he wanted to drag her into the training centre and throw her to the monsters right this minute, but by the time his mind had taken a firm stance on wanting to do all these things she had already rounded the hall to the dormitories.

"Hey, where's Quistis headed off to?" a familiar voice cut into his murderous thoughts.

"Raijin," Seifer acknowledged him. "Who gives a damn where she's headed?"

"Well I was kind of hoping to run into her since I've been meaning to ask her about our project -"

"Project?" Seifer asked. "Why in the blue hell do you have to do a project with _her_?"

"She's nice, and she's pretty smart," Raijin answered, apparently not noticing the acid dripping off Seifer's every word that remotely concerned Quistis. "And she sits beside me -"

"In _what!"_

"Psych -"

"You sit psychology with Trepe?" Seifer asked his friend in outrage.

"You mean with Quistis? Yeah, I do," Raijin said casually.

"You never told me!"

"Why would I have to tell you?" he asked, genuinely confused. "Did you want to know her schedule?"

"Hyne no! It's just -" Seifer rubbed the back of his neck in tired frustration, then sighed, relenting. "Why is she a year back in psychology?"

Raijin shrugged. "Dunno, man. She started when she was ten, right? Maybe she didn't start young enough, ya know." When Seifer did not reply, instead choosing to look off into space, Raijin assumed he was waiting to hear more. "Anyway, it's due in two weeks and -"

"She'll get the marks just cause she's _Trepe,_" Seifer concluded. "Why would you have to do anything?"

"Because she's my _partner_, ya know," Raijin said as though it were obvious.

"Pretty and smart?" Seifer repeated in disbelief. "You're an idiot."

"I said, 'pretty smart,' Raijin corrected. "Though now that you mention it -"

"Why don't you just start the fan club," Seifer suggested flatly.

"Umm...actually, there is -" Raijin stopped himself short. "Never mind."

"What!"

"Having a bad morning?"

"Shut up."

"Fujin is in the cafeteria, I was just coming to get you, ya know."

"Yeah."

"Misplaced anger, ya know. See? I know my psychology too."

Raijin received another nasty scowl in return. He shook his head in slight disbelief as the pair walked alongside one another towards the cafeteria, deciding it would be better not to press for any further information concerning Seifer's Mood.

.

.

_So Miss Trepe has failed before_...

Except that when she failed something the first time, she made sure it Never Happened Again. That applied to her first detention four years ago, and most likely would apply to her repetition of a required course. She'd pass it this time, with top marks. That was the rarely occuring cycle. Quistis would fail. Then she'd disappear into some sort of internal dark space for a short period, emerging as if nothing had happened, and be so successful in her second attempt that one would wonder how she'd failed the first time in the first place.

'How do I know this,' Seifer asked himself angrily. He rolled onto his back in his bed and stared up at the ceiling, crossing his arms. Quistis wasn't so flawless. He knew she wanted everyone to think being her required little to no effort but he wasn't so gullible.

He'd almost go as far as to wager money on it had there not been one glaring exception. One constant failure that she experienced at least twice a month. He didn't know whether or not she actually believed that the more calculated attempts she made, the more chance there was that Leonhart would actually give in.

Seifer reached his arms over his head and crushed his pillow over his ears, hoping it would drown out all the useless thoughts chugging along in his mind. Both of them... Trepe and Leonhart ... they represented everything he strived against – Leonhart, trying to keep to himself and block out the world and his own empty existence. A coward, who had no real aspirations other than to have a drab, meaningless life, but trained endlessly and excelled in combat, yet refused to take Seifer up on any of his challenges. Squall Leonhart had nothing to prove. Squall Leonhart had no purpose.

Then there was Quistis, with her awkwardness and restraint, her calculative nature and how she _studied_ everything. Seifer didn't know a Quistis Trepe. He knew a pliable piece of clay that bent to everyones wishes, to what those around her would approve and praise, and Quistis as an artist of self-deception delighted in everyone's approval, brushing off all her study and rehearsal as 'the way she is'. Then there would come a time when she'd come across him and her plastic coating would wear thin. She'd shake and shout and desperately try to keep the color from rushing up her face, the fire from burning in her eyes – he smirked up at the ceiling – and try as she might to be a huge phony, a product off of an assembly line, he saw the Quistis Trepe that tried to throttle him when they were ten. Clearly, she was ashamed of that Quistis Trepe.

They should just get together then, Seifer thought with sudden amusement. Squall would be an anti-social loner and Quistis would sit alongside him in silence, opening her mouth every so often only to be silenced with a look. Later, she would tell her friends what a great date she had had, and they'd all sigh and tell her how lucky she was. She'd beam proudly and push whatever objections she really had deep into a place she didn't care to look.

Seifer groaned as he looked over at the clock on his bedside table and hit the wall with his forearm, unmindful of the light shuffling of his roomate on the other side. Perhaps he would have been better off just forgetting. Everyone else could just forget, but he always remembered.

He remembered with an unexpected and unwanted clarity the first time she fell into his arms. The memory left a bitter taste in his mouth, as most of them did, and no one else in this institution could dwell on memories quite the way he could.

"_What a shame. You're back," he said to the girl as she descended towards him. He leaned back against the edge of the fountain's enclosure in Balamb Garden's atrium, crossing his arms in front of him. "I thought they were taking you back to whatever box you crawled out of."_

_Surprisingly, she glanced at him up and down with a far away look in her eyes, before straightening in what he supposed was recognition. He drew him self away from the wall at that point and supported his own weight, opposing her. _

"_Seifer Almasy," she greeted with a polite incline of her head. She looked around briefly, assessing her situation, and hung back, leaning against the side of the directory. "How have you been?"_

"_What?" he sniped, taking purposeful strides towards her. "You don't mean that, really," he said with conviction. _

"_Well, why wouldn't I?" she said, beginning to sound defensive. "You're a classmate of mine..."_

"_We're not like that – just reminding you."_

_There was a pause in which they surveyed one another. There she was, Quistis Trepe, analyzing him once again, memorizing his appearance, once again... there never should have been an _again_._

"_Who am I?" he said when she wouldn't speak. "Seifer Almasy." He took great pleasure in watching her mouth his name along with his words. He made a motion as though to extend his hand, but instead drew it back slowly and stuffed it in his pocket. _

"_Your classmate ... no, your superior. Yeah. You came to this place two years ago, and got in my way. Have tried to ever since."_

_She glared daggers at him, like she always did, and he could see the gears in her head turning, like they always did – considering each word before she said it, thinking carefully and gauging his possible reactions. He hated those calculations computing endlessly in her head._

"_So you did come back."_

"_I'm sorry you wasted the last ten minutes reminding me that we share a mutual dislike," she told him. "Should I excuse myself now or just walk away since that's 'what we are'."_

"_You're stupid for doing it," he said in a low voice._

"_Sorry, but I'm not following," she snapped. _

"_I thought with all the time you spend reading and paying attention, you'd know better."_

"_Better than to _what!"

_He narrowed his eyes at her, willing her to recoil away from him, to be scared, or apprehensive. But no, she at least remembered that much... _

"_Forget it!" she said, straigtening and trying to remain aloof as possible, "I have better things to do than stand here and decode your riddles."_

"_You know what you did before you agreed to it! Why? Tell me!"_

"_Since you're asking so _nicely_..."_

"_So, in all seriousness Trepe, do you hate yourself that much?"_

"_What are you talking about!"_

"_Where did you head off to this morning, Trepe? Or did you forget already? Are you that weak?" he taunted, enjoying boasting his superior knowledge and grasp of the situation._

"_I got to go onto the field and use a guardian force!" she told him, an unintended proud smile following. "I finally get to train with magic -"_

"_And now what?" he brushed her off. "Feeling good? Enjoying your newfound power? Because to me it looks like a slight breeze will knock you over."_

"_Since I _read_ and _study_ like you said earlier, I know that I should be feeling a bit tired and/or dizzy," she countered, glaring ferally. "I think they should add that idiots must be avoided during the recovery period -"_

"_Really? Then how would you deal with yourself, Trepe?" he said acidly. "I just want to know why. Because it's in the manual? It's what's expected of you? Because your mind doesn't matter -"_

"_It can't be _free_, Seifer, that's what I read! And whatever effects you're babbling on about – they haven't been one hundred percent proven yet!"_

_Seeing that her outburst hadn't swayed him or changed his visible stance in any way, she frustratedly let out a small huff of air. "Why do you even care? I heard – I heard that they won't even let you get near a guardian force.."_

_His expression tightened visibly at this, his jaw clenching. "I guess I just place a little more value on my mind than you do, Trepe."_

"_What for?" she whispered harshly. "What thoughts do you have that are so valuable? Besides how great you are – or how stupid I am, how much better you are than me?"_

_He opened his mouth to agree, or make a derisive comment, but she narrowed her eyes and raised a finger, signalling she wasn't quite finished. _

"_Sometimes people have to work a little harder for their power, Seifer Almasy," she said dangerously. She was beyond angry, he knew, but there was something else in her eyes – something... sincere? "You do, why else would you be requesting training for alternative energy-based magic techniques?"_

"_That's none of your -"_

"_And I'm none of your business!" she cut him off."What makes me so different that you had to single me out here today? I'm not the only one who - "_

"_You're not. That's exactly it, you're not different. You're not special, you're just another uniform, another number, another name on a list. Don't entertain the thought that you might be." _

_She was silent. If he looked carefully enough, he could have caught the split-second quiver of her shoulders. Her jaw was tense, lips pursed, and there it was, the telltale flush on her cheekbones offsetting the pale hue of her skin._

"_Then I'm not," she said slowly, staring directly into his eyes. He had a fleeting desire to tell her to stop looking at him like that. _

"_I'm nobody – I'm nothing to forget. If that's - then maybe I want to – I should -"_

_She wavered on the spot, clenching and unclenching her fists. "I have to -" she began, and started to turn away, probably to get away from him, he thought. Her skin rapidly grew pallid, and he could see it through her eyes, whatever guardian force she had allowed into her mind, allowed to plow through her memories and take the ones it liked best..._

_The edges of her glasses poked uncomfortably into his chest as she fell against him, her breaths coming fast and the skin of her forehead clammy. "Yeah, you'll want to forget this," he said ruefully to her half-conscious form, and he felt her nails weakly dig into his arm in response. Her eyes narrowed, the action tired and meaningless, as she gave her remaining moments in the conscious world to glare at him._

_Seconds later she was snatched from him by Instructor Holly and a few surrounding students, and she was shooting him a dark look as he not so gently untangled his hand from her hair. He painted on a smirk, wiping his hands off on his pant legs in an exaggerated motion. _

_He knew it was going to happen when he had upset her so soon after her initial junction. But it was her own fault. Trying to best him as she did – at least she had the bravery to even try – in his mind, she would always lose. _

_So she did come back... but she left some of herself behind. To borrow some power... of course – it was always about power. He looked up and around him, scowl in place, only to find that the hallway had cleared for the most part, and that the world indeed would not stop for him._

_._

_._

The morning of the field exercises Quistis was surprised to find students already milling around their desks; usually she would be the one there earliest, seated quietly at her terminal checking for any new updates to the course webpages. Today, however, students were scattered about the room, with expressions ranging from terrified to arrogant. Two classes were combined for this particular exam, and the two instructors were standing at the front of the classroom, rifling through papers. Students continued to filter in at a steady rate until finally, a male and a female clad in SeeD uniform arrived and stood beside the doors.

Quistis half-listened to the instructors going over last minute explanations she'd already read a dozen times and instead took in the sight of the SeeDs at the front of the room. They were so disciplined, tall and just so _official_. Their entrance had brought a quiet hush to the crowd that allowed the instructors to call all attention to the front.

"Staring, Trepe?" somebody hissed behind her. Her chair jerked forward as what she guessed was that same person kicked the leg. Quistis chose not to react. With two classes in the room, everyone had just sort of found their own seat, but of course Seifer would sit behind her and kick her chair. She rolled her eyes.

Instructor Timea, an older woman that certainly did not let age keep her from staying in shape, was barking out instructions over the chatter that was slowly picking up.

"We will be forming groups of three-"

"Aww _three_? Come on!" someone shouted out.

"- and assembling in the main hall, where a SeeD member will give out your assignments and further direction. The groups are already chosen." She paused to let the groans and sighs dissipate. "Alphabetical order."

She knew at those words that she wouldn't be in Squall's group. (Not that she cared.) How far was T away from L? Eight letters or so? Absently, she turned her head and glanced in Squall's direction, her view heavily impeded by a dozen extra bodies in her way. Her chair jerked forward again, and she threw a quick glare at Seifer before turning back around.

"Adam, Anders, and Beata," Timea called out sharply. The three offending students stood and shuffled out the door. Quistis' head snapped up to the front of the classroom. Alphabetical order by first name? Maybe there was hope then, Q was only two letters away from S... and this wasn't exactly a _massive_ class...

"Emmeline, Elliot, Fariha..." The sole male's friends, presumably, hooted and catcalled as he exited the class with the two females. Quistis sat stiffly in her chair, her heart thumping in her chest.

"Quistis, Raijin, and Seifer," the instructor's voice droned on. "Shayan, Squall, Trenten."

By this time Raijin had already stood and was waiting beside Quistis' desk where she sat, rooted to her chair, ever since the assignments had left the instructor's mouth.

"Hey," he nudged her ever so slightly, knocking her from her self-imposed mental escape. "Seifer's already gone down to the atrium, ya know?"

"You should have gone down too," she told him distantly.

"Well, I was gonna, but we're a team, so we all gotta be there. And I've been standing here for awhile, ya know? So I didn't think you were gonna come if Seifer or I didn't get ya. They're being real official with this, ya know? Or else Timea would have snapped already."

She gave him a wry smile. "Sorry."

He looked at her quizically as she stood up and walked briskly out of the room, lengthening her strides to match the taller boy's.

"Well, we're losing points, right? It's an exam."

Raijin didn't respond, instead quickening his pace as Seifer came into view. His back was towards them, and as they came closer, Quistis saw that he was standing with a girl in SeeD garb, however she wasn't looking as poised and disciplined as the SeeDs back in the classroom. In fact, her hands were fisted on her hips and she was glowering murderously.

"Shoebox!" Seifer was calling out in a singsong tone. "Shoebox Yuan!"

The SeeD Seifer was addressing shifted her weight, her almond shaped eyes hardening as they focused on him. Quistis was sure that he had that arrogant smirk smeared across his mouth, oddly comforted that she wasn't the only one that mere facial expression infuriated.

"This is unfair, Shoebox. They're letting _you_ shape, mould and guide us?" Seifer said mockingly. "Can I request a different SeeD member? I fear for my safety."

"Believe me, the last thing I want to do this morning is babysit children while they let them run loose all over the world," she shot back. "I'm amazed they're letting _you_ out without your leash on."

Upon closer inspection Quistis faintly recognized the girl. She'd seen her around Garden's hallways before, but the attitude, the general mockery of other's unfortunate accidents verified her image. She was the older cadet that had barged into Doctor Kadowaki's office years ago...

"Shoebox!" Seifer's voice rang through her thoughts of recollection. "Who'd you blow to get a SeeD uniform?"

"She's had it out for Seifer for as long as he can remember," Raijin said to Quistis in a low voice. "Even before I came to Garden she was always at his throat – it got better with time because Yuan wants to move up in rank... Seifer's not really one to uhh.. respect rankings, I guess that's the best way I can put it, ya know? I mean, well he wants the ranks," he backtracked, "but not for like, what they are, just kinda, for the authority, ya know?"

Quistis gave him an emphatic smile that he didn't notice due to the look of painful confusion on his face.

"I'm guessing 'Shoebox' isn't a term of endearment?" she whispered back, then stifled a giggle when Raijin shook his head with vigor.

"It's really Xu, but Seifer's called her Shoebox for as long as I can remember. Never explained it."

Quistis supposed their petty squabbling made sense. Xu, from what little Quistis had seen of her, wasn't exactly tolerant of idiocy and unfounded arrogance, and neither she nor Seifer were anything resembling patient. She took the time to look a little more closely at Xu. Her hair was cut, shorter now, calling attention to her sharp jawline and long neck.

"Hi there, Cadet Trepe. SeeD Xu Yuan," the subject of Quistis' thoughts greeted, her voice sounding like it was struggling to sound pleasant. Quistis wondered faintly if she recognized her. "You, Raijin and Seifer here are the green team." Xu reached for her arm and secured a green band around her wrist.

"Hey, SeeD Shoebox, I want to be looked at when I am being addressed," Seifer said lazily from Xu's right.

"Your team is going to Timber," she continued, ignoring him. "You'll need these -" she produced a small backpack and held it out to Seifer, then snatched it back and pushed it into Raijin's hands, " - for your exercise."

At this point she turned to face Seifer, grinning in a way that would unsettle Quistis if she were the recipient. "Ah, your exercise," she paused and took a moment to stretch, "which will be land surveying."

"What? We don't even get to fight anything?" Seifer near exploded.

"Why would you want to, Almasy?" Xu said nastily. "We both know what happens when _you_ try to fight anything."

Quistis looked at Seifer curiously; he seemed to take quite a hit from those words. Again, she couldn't help but wonder.

"You should all know what the typical scouting entails," Xu continued in a businesslike manner, again addressing Quistis and Raijin and angled slightly away from Seifer. "I should probably let you guys take a copy of your texts with you, just because you poor, poor green team have to deal with _such _disadvantages... "

.

.

"So basically, we are assigned a square footage of this 'area', so professionally referred to as sector 2.3, or something official and cool sounding, we walk around it, take notes, pictures and descriptions, and return to the train at the designated time," Seifer said sullenly as he trudged a few steps ahead of his fellow team members.

Quistis semi-stared at Seifer's feet, referring to them only to know in what direction to follow him, their self-proclaimed 'leader'. It all seemed so long ago that Xu was not so subtly telling them they needed all the help they could get, for a task that seemed relatively simple. In actuality, any other standard group of students would have been happy to get this assignment as a field evaluation, but if this was the group she would be a part of, she had no idea what task they wouldn't find some inconceivable difficulty with. Her mind still fixed on the past, she remembered Squall grouping off with Trenten and Shayan, seeing him in the atrium with a mild-mannered SeeD and herded in the opposite direction away from her, Seifer and Xu's not-so-thinly veiled insults echoing distantly in her ears...

"Okay, so what's our assignment again?" she said aloud.

Raijin regarded her oddly. "We were just talking about it."

"Don't mind Trepe, she's still smarting over having an awful name like Quistis," he said nonchalantly. "She's regretting that her parents didn't name her Squistis."

"Quistis sounds fine," Raijin replied. "But Squistis? That's awful."

Seifer threw him a dumbfounded expression that his friend chose to ignore, instead turning to the subject of Seifer's previous barb.

"I think Quistis is a cool name," he assured her. "Don't know anyone else with anything even close – you okay?"

"Mmm-hmm," she murmured, her chin lowered uncharacteristically. Seifer turned around at this, his expression growing into one of delight.

"Embarassed, Trepe?" he asked her. "Come on, be proud. You should proclaim your feelings of love to the world. There's always some people who'd root for you, sad as it is."

"Shut up," Quistis said, raising her head and glaring at him despite the embarassed flush that flared across her cheeks.

He smiled, looking quite satisfied with himself, and turned around again, leading his group.

"Umm, so you like Squall?" Raijin muttered after a stretch of silence interrupted only by the crunch of the dirt underneath their feet. "I mean, it's not a big deal, ya know, just err- I wouldn't have thought that," he added quickly, sensing her immediate irritation.

"How do you -" she began, then opted for a calmer sounding voice. "No. I mean I don't know." She stopped herself from throwing her arms up in the air. "He's a nice person," she whispered back briskly. "And that's the truth." Well, a partial truth, she admitted in her head. It wasn't as though she was being dishonest. Raijin could be a decent human being, on his own, and while she could probably feel comfortable sharing troublesome thoughts with him, the fact that he had a solid friendship with Seifer prevented any real trust they could share.

"You guys enjoying discussing the assignment?" Seifer's irritated voice cut through their hushed conversation. "Because I'd like to finish this two-bit operation quickly and easily please."

"There is a _purpose_ to the things we have to accomplish here, you know," Quistis said tiredly, already thoroughly frustrated at her own failed analysis of her current fascination with Squall Leonhart.

"Pointless busy work in an assimilated town," Seifer countered. "_You_ probably think it's so Garden can train us in surveying land and making a map, but more street savvy people would know that there are some bullshit meetings and political what-have-you going on while we're here, and _real_ reconnaisance scouting."

"Why the politics here?" Quistis found herself asking. "Garden doesn't get involved in this sort of stuff – we learned that."

"They're oppressing the people here," Seifer said in a tone that suggested she was stupid for not knowing this already. "They don't want to be occupied by Galbadia."

"Well, they're helping them," Quistis replied, sounding mildly argumentative. "They're giving them technology and making them accessible to the rest of the world -"

"Well they don't want that -"

"They don't want that now, but they'll see in time that the benefits outweigh -"

"It wasn't asked for -"

"Why do you have to interrupt me all the time -"

"Because you wouldn't have to keep talking if I tell you what's right -"

"So you're supposed to tell me what's right?" she snapped, her eyes flashing. "I don't need to, you know, read the news or watch television, I just have to ask _you_ what's going on and how to feel about it."

He ran a hand through his hair with a sigh and rested his hand on the handle of his gunblade. "Who makes the news, Trepe?"

"Oh, so here we go again with more of your conspiracy theories," she said, throwing a hand up in the air. "Just keep throwing the stupid pins down and shut up."

"Just like how we're going on with making this stupid map," he continued, her growing irritation seeming to energize him. "You go on and make this stupid map for your beloved Garden and just ignore everything else going on in the world until _Garden_ news informs you of current events."

"This _Garden_ you speak so ill of is the place you and I grew up in! How could you be so -"

He stopped walking suddenly, so fast that Quistis nearly bumped into him. She opened her mouth to snipe at him but he was first.

"Try thinking for yourself for once."

"What are you talking about! Who would think for me?"

"Is it so hard to grasp, Trepe, that some people would prefer say, a simpler way of life, perhaps keeping to their old ways?"

"No, it's not, and we're way beyond that now," Quistis snapped. "This has turned into a nice roundtable discussion on your general unpleasantness."

"What if I told you that if you let me sit in your brain and suck up all your unique and coherent thought s, I'd grant you, in some messed up way, the ability to throw magic spells around like some sort of witch?"

He smiled rather grimly at her.

"Why are you always going _on_ about that?" she began. "Seriously, it's been years now, and every chance you get you always have to bring it up. I'm not the _only_ one that's ever junctioned a guardian force, for Hyne's sake!"

Seifer had already turned around with a grunt and was taking intentionally large strides ahead of her. "Whatever you say -"

"Wait!"

Quistis whipped her head around at the rustling sounds around them in the clearing, maneuvering herself backwards and motioning Raijin closer. She started when somebody grabbed her wrist.

"Seifer it's me, you idiot," she hissed, wrenching her hand away.

"You don't just bump into someone from behind and expect me not to react," he replied, opting for glaring ahead of him instead of risking turning around.

It happened so quickly that all three students could barely prepare themselves to ready their weapons. A tall, large, armoured figure lunged from the shadows between the tree trunks and loomed over Quistis' smaller form. Staring up at him determinedly, she saw the newcomer motion to someone behind her; he had to have at least one other companion.

"So, the Forest Rodents, or whatever you call yourselves are employing children?" The voice was muffled behind the grated mouth guard on his helmet, but the fact that it dripped with disdain was not missed. He shook his head slowly as his comrade came into Quistis' view.

"Doesn't matter, you know our orders. All dissenters." The second guard cocked his head towards the young cadets and motioned to his friend, who nodded in response and began advancing on the three.

Seifer immediately drew his gunblade so quickly Quistis could have swore he produced it out of thin air. "You can't arrest us," he said curtly. Quistis looked from the guard to Seifer and her hand itched to reach out and smack him upside the head.

"You just drew your weapon at a city official," the soldier corrected him. "So yes, we can arrest you."

"You're not an official of this city," Seifer countered, his weapon held eerily still straight out in front of him. Quistis could see the sweat on his brow and his knuckles turning white from his grip. "Last I heard your presence was not requested in this town."

"Sorry kid," the soldier responded. "But word has it that there's a resistance movement about – and the higher ups aren't taking any chances -"

"Please!" Quistis cut in before she could stop herself. "We're just students on a field exam! From Balamb Garden! Surely you must have been informed about this by your superiors!"

The taller of the soldiers paused, shouldering his rifle in mock-contemplation. "Yeah, we were informed."

Quistis straightened in front of the man and tried to look determined.

"We were informed that all Garden students in the area would be identifiable by coloured wristbands."

Quistis looked around quickly at Seifer and Raijin wrists, releasing a breath of relief she hadn't known she'd been holding. Then, she looked to her own bare wrist. Feeling frozen in place, she slowly looked up at the Galbadian soldier in front of her.

"I don't think all of you are wearing Garden wristbands are you?" the guard said with a sneer, inching closer to her with every word.

"Hey!" Seifer spoke up suddenly, moving forward in front of Quistis, still brandishing his gunblade. "It's right there on the ground. It accidentally ripped off!"

Without a word, the shorter guard moved quickly to bring his fist down into Seifer's wrist, causing his blade to fall unceremoniously to the ground. Raijin shuffled forward automatically to help his friend, but was grabbed by the scruff by the larger guard, who immediately pointed the barrel of his gun at Quistis' nose.

"You," the soldier snarled at the largest of the three students, shaking him for emphasis. Quistis stole a glance at Raijin's face, contorted into a furious glare the likes of which she'd never seen. "You are to report to Garden."

"Not without the rest of my team!" Raijin spat back, his hands quivering. Quistis could tell he was struggling to control his anger and wasn't going to hold on much longer. She caught his eye and she could almost feel his rage. Mouthing a silent 'no', she reluctantly returned to staring down the gun in her face.

"The rest of your team are potential terrorists," the Galbadian continued silkily, and he tilted Quistis' chin with the gun's barrel towards Seifer, who was face down on the ground being handcuffed, the green wristband nowhere to be seen.

"You three could be impersonating Garden cadets," he carried on, "with counterfeit identification."

He let go of Raijin's collar and pushed him backward. "You'll be brought to the station to contact Balamb Garden. Until then -"

Quistis didn't scream or make a sound as a bag of some sort was thrown over her head and everything became black. Her heart may have stopped for a moment, but if it did, she didn't notice.

.

.

It was true what Quistis had read about the senses. If one got taken away, the others became more pronounced. With her sight a black cloth, and her hands tied behind her back, the world was the musty scent of diesel fuel and mouldy upholstery. Taste was the damp spot on the cloth bag where her breath fell, and the only sound in her ears was muffled laughter, tires rolling on sand and a soft breeze that did nothing to alleviate the beating down of the humid heat on her shoulders.

Then her head was pulled back, and the new air that flowed up her nostrils was metallic and smelled of despair. She fell clumsily onto a cold surface, her feet not knowing where to place themselves or what direction they were going. The room swam slowly into focus as she took slow, deep breaths, squinting at a lone droplet of water on the top corner of the metal wall that slowly trailed downward, past a similarly shaped rust stain, stopping as it hit the ground.

Another thump sounded from behind her, and she turned her head from her position face down on the ground. The echo of a heavy door closing reverberated through the room, giving way to silence.

"Seifer?" she croaked, her throat dry.

The person beside her shifted, a low grunt confirming his identity.

"Are you okay?"

There was a shuffle as Seifer pushed himself to his feet, standing up quickly and promptly sitting on the bench nailed to the wall, his legs giving out on him. Quistis smirked but turned her face away, moving to a seated position on the floor.

"So between us three, the biggest, and most dim one is the one that gets away?" Seifer asked to the otherwise empty cell. "Irony at its finest."

His fellow prisoner made a noise of distaste from the opposite wall. "Isn't he your friend?"

"Doesn't mean he can't also be an idiot," Seifer replied, stretching his arms over his head and tapping his foot restlessly.

"I think it's more ironic that the one who boasts all day about being so high and mighty is the one that landed us in here in the first place," Quistis retorted with an unelegant snort. "Sorry, I meant moronic."

"Blaming it on me, are you? As far as I remember, they grabbed us both. And were going for you."

"I know we both ended up here," Quistis said flippantly, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "But when they questioned us, who kept yelling like a madman and threatening everyone, even after they had knocked your weapon away!"

"You call that questioning?" Seifer said in disbelief. "They use violent force, I'm allowed to retaliate -"

"That violates the protocol we cover in class, Seifer, maybe that's why you're repeating -"

"Of course, the _protocol_," Seifer spoke over her loudly. "Hyne forbid we break the rules of the _protocol_!"

"So what, you want a world where everyone does whatever they want and theres no order or law to prevent horrible crimes or – or inhumane acts? You want to be able to just attack the government's soldiers whenever you deem fit?"

"When did I say that!"

"You just said -"

"Yeah, I was talking abou the _protocol_, genius," he sneered. "So basically, everyone that doesn't adhere to whatever rules you deem to be the right ones is in favour of the destruction of the world? We should just lay down and let the powers that be rule us?"

"I'm pretty sure the world as ruled by you comes to mind when I think of chaotic things."

"There's no wood around, so I'll knock-on-metal instead," Seifer said with a knowing look, rapping on the wall soundly.

A loud clanging rose by the doorway, and a pair of dark beady eyes appeared in the barred peephole in the door.

"Hey, law-breakers, mind keeping it down in there? I don't like having to mess with children. I gots some at home and I won't sleep well at night."

Quistis half-expected Seifer to get up and taunt the warden, an unwise choice as he was on the wrong side of that door to be expecting any warm welcomes once it opened. But instead, he smirked at her.

"Hear that?"

"What?" she asked, annoyed.

"You're a law-breaker," he informed her. "I believe breaking the law is somewhere in the protocol. Under section, 'do this and you're bad.' Delinquent."

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"The law is there for a reason."

He rolled his eyes at her.

"So you think they were right to throw us in here?"

"We could just be in a holding cell for -"

"D-District prison is for political prisoners, Squistis," Seifer cut in smoothly. "And you know that. So stop pretending . . . that you don't know, I mean."

She turned away from him, uncomfortable with him staring at her, and hugged one knee to her chest.

He sat up again, resting his elbows on his knees and observing her once more. "So if, say, the government's army is currently in place in a town named, say, Timber -" he paused to look meaningfully at her, however her eyes were determinedly fixed at a spot somewhere by his left foot. "And there's word going round' that certain individuals weren't too pleased with the situation, is the army right to arrest students out on a fun school field trip on the suspicion that they might be a part of this 'revolt'?"

"My band ripped off, okay?" she responded monotonously. "Garden students have bands, and I was missing mine. It's my fault -"

"You can't possibly believe that!" Seifer interrupted, his temper flaring. "They _knew_, Trepe, and we learn this in the _protocol _ you love and cherish. Corruption exists. So does political unrest. They want to send a message." He slammed his fist against and wall and lay down on the bench on his back, staring at the ceiling.

"Then I'm sorry for believing in something," Quistis said to the tense atmosphere around them.

Of course she would apologize.

"Believe what they teach you then, Trepe."

"Garden encourages free-thinking you know -"

"Hyne, stop! You're already sounding like a Garden pamphlet – that is, if written by Raijin," Seifer said exasperatedly. "Maybe there is something to his ridiculous crush."

Her mouth dropped open a little bit at this. "His – his _crush?_"

Seifer rolled him eyes. "Oh come on, you saw how he looked back at you."

"At _you_," she corrected him. "You're his friend too, and I am in awe at how someone like you ever managed that."

"Someone like me, huh?" he repeated, his eyes glazing over with mild anger. "And you're such a prize yourself. What's there to like, tell me. I'm dying to know."

Quistis opened and closed her mouth several times, her mind rapidly sifting through everything she had learned so far about enemies, interrogations, breaking a jawbone or kneecap or _anything _that would either make him shut up or not have to converse with him any longer.

Unfortunately, they were stuck in a jail cell together and that was the only sure thing in the immediate future.

"Well, I guess there's the fact that you're awfully talented at kissing ass."

"It's called _manners_, something _you've_ never heard of -"

"And then there's that habit you have of poking your nose into everyone's business. Remember what happened to the cat, Trepe."

"If I didn't tell the administration about your stupid fight club -"

"It's not _my club_ and why didn't you just rat on the other oh – _thirty _or so members?"

"I only caught _you_."

"And it's as simple as that." His eyes moved skyward once again.

"And that's supposed to mean?"

"Do you prefer to see things in black and white?"

"Answering a question with a question," Quistis sighed. "Evasive technique."

"You seem like an it is or it isn't type of person, Squistis," Seifer continued as if she hadn't spoken. "For example, yes I did attend a Balamb fight club meeting, which isn't allowed, and is punishable. And you caught me, and reported me, even if I _was_ trying to find that idiot Anferney who forgot his insulin."

A catlike smirk developed across his face as he watched Quistis intently. She refused to meet his eyes.

"I guess you don't get it Trepe," he said with a mock sigh, slumping over on the metal bench. "It is or it isn't."

"Are you happy now?" Quistis said suddenly, stiffening against the wall.

"Question for question, Trepe? Well, why should I be?" he said lazily, raising an eyebrow.

"You just seem like... like you'll never be happy unless someone else isn't," she said after some hesitation, try as she might to make it look like a dramatic pause.

He looked almost as if he was considering her words. "Is that what you think Trepe?"

She pursed her lips, nodding slowly.

He shrugged and turned away.

"If we're going to be petty, Trepe," he said finally, stretching and folding his arms against his chest. "Fuujin told me you had a _lisp,_" Seifer moodswung to positively giddy, and in any other circumstance she would have wondered if the boy was capable of such joy. Of course he was, she reminded herself bitterly. He's happy he's found more material with which to test her theory. He's probably just been waiting for the opportunity to bring up this little tidbit of information. "I knew I heard something weird in your speech sometimes – who would have thought? Quithtith Trepe couldn't thpeak properly when thee wath jutht a little girl."

"Is it so hard to believe?"

"I suppose not. Clearly you're ashamed of it."

"Since you seem to have an affinity for people with strange speech patterns then why aren't we the best of friends?"

He looked at her for a long moment, and Quistis found herself longing for a glass of water. From what she could recall in her recent memory, she hadn't been forced to talk so much in her life. Seifer, on the other hand, seemed to love the sound of his own voice.

"Maybe you're right, Trepe."

A thick blanket of silence fell from the ceiling and rested itself uncomfortably around the pair, moreso Quistis, for Seifer did not all look disturbed by what he had just suggested.

"Cards?" she offered, as she had recently discovered silence between her and Seifer was potentially dangerous and led to strange revelations.

"Don't tell me that you brought that set with you," Seifer said with a hint of amusement in his voice as she procured a stack of Triple Triad cards from seemingly nowhere.

"No," she said with a half-scowl of her own. "The guard slipped them through the bars while we were having our pleasant conversation earlier." Her hands were moving quickly, seperating the cards into stacks and shuffling them effortlessly between her fingers. He tried not to let his surprise show.

"Prison rules?" Seifer suggested with a raised eyebrow.

"And what would those be?" she inquired distractedly, counting out equally-sized, perfectly piled stacks and gently nudging one towards him.

"Well, there would be gil involved, and if I win, I would make you my – err – prison wife," Seifer said casually as he evaluated his hand. "Could involve tattoos too."

Quistis shot him a look that showed how unimpressed she was, throwing down her first card on the mat.

.

.

In the middle of the fifteenth round of best of seven with newly invented rules such as three second card fondling violations, blind pick with stare down, and speed round, Quistis was beginning to think Seifer had given up on trying a long time ago, and was simply trying to create ways to make fun of her. She had seemed to rack up alot of card fondling fouls on monster cards that he felt shared attributes with Squall, though she doubted that Vysage's right hand slap reminded her of Squall's best combat technique.

"Why do you hate me?" she asked slowly, delibrately.

He lifted his suddenly heavy gaze to her, finding that she kept hers on the ground between them, the cards still strewn about the floor.

"What?"

"Did I stutter?" she ground out, still staring at the cards.

"My, my, Quistis Trepe," he said in that manner of superiority he always used when speaking to her. "Don't get all ladylike with me now."

"I win," she said softly, but he didn't miss the pleased look that crossed her lips.

"Don't be so modest," he shot at her, the sarcasm all too evident in his voice. "I don't know why you act like everything is a fluke for you – like you're not the only one putting their hands up to answer a question, or you guessed all the answers to the multiple choice and it just _happened_ to come out perfect."

She looked at him then, finally, lazily observing him from beneath her eyelashes. "To brag would be arrogant."

"To act like it was nothing is self-deprecating," he answered instantly. "You make your own effort look like garbage –"

"And your lack thereof?" she cut in.

"I _know_ you don't just stare at the blanks and watch the answers fill themselves in," he snapped. "Then you get everyone fawning over you, giving you praise, and you just do your little bow and curtsey and say 'it was nothing,' or 'I could have done better,' so that they fall ass over shoulder to assure you, over and _over_, of how good you are. Hyne, you're worse than _Squall._"

"How, do tell, am I anything like Squall!" she demanded.

"If I told you that, it'd only make you _happy_," he said derisively. "And by your oh-so-scientific theory, Dr. Trepe, that would make me miserable, since the only way I can find fulfilment is through other people's misfortunes."

"Do you hate Squall because of me?" she shot at him, laying her cards down and bracing her hands on her knees.

"Don't even start," Seifer all but snarled, "when you weren't even here from the beginning - "

"But it's something, right? It has something to do with it?" she pressed, leaning forward as she gained momentum. "Please tell me it's not anything to do with jealousy, Almasy?" she said slyly, tilting her head.

Seifer had moved down from the bench to sit on the floor opposite her during their game, but now leaned down to her level and locked his eyes with hers.

"I'm not jealous of Leonhart. And I'm definitely not jealous of you," he said evenly. He caught the miniscule twitch of her brow and her teeth closing lightly on the tip of her tongue, actions that even she did not notice.

"The answer is no," he said flatly, looking at his cards and throwing one down to the mat. "I know your act Trepe. And that's all it is, an act. But I'll give you some credit, because Leonhart doesn't have the time or intelligence to deceive everyone around him. He knows what he is and what he isn't. You, on the other hand, are worse because you're ashamed of yourself and your flaws. You can't be happy with yourself. I can't hate you Trepe, you do it for me."

Quistis drew a card with a shaking hand and let it almost float downward towards the mat.

"Like you don't have one?" she countered, incensed. "Like you don't act."

"Do I?" he asked casually. Her voice was rising in pitch, her throat sounding parched.

"Entitled – superior – high and mighty – like everyone has wronged you or owes you something."

His jaw clenched but he smirked at her anyway. "Acting?"

"Maybe if you were polite, or decent or even tried to be remotely civil to those you didn't deem worthy everyone wouldn't write you off as a big asshole!" she spat, her fingers twitching towards him. "And as for everything else - you don't know that, how could you know that," she finished in a whisper.

Seifer frowned. _Tell her how you've seen her_, an annoying voice in the back of his head that sounded oddly like Raijin's taunted him. _You've seen her pouring over books in the library for hours when she missed a definition on a pop quiz – and in the training centre grinding away because her combat instructor criticized her technique, until someone reported her for curfew. At the crack of dawn she was running laps in the courtyard because she had added a half second to her sprint since the previous week, and after class she was always clarifying everything she'd learned that day with the instructor. Tell her that's how you know. _

"Is this you, Trepe? The real Trepe?" he taunted her instead. "Are we having fun with psychoanalysis yet? Does the real Quistis Trepe use curse words and own up to having no interests outside of studying – although she does seem to enjoy a good card game? Cause' I think the real Quistis Trepe enjoys kicking my ass in cards right now – she wants to backhand me for getting in her head. I think she regrets cracking because now she's exposed – she knows the real Quistis Trepe wouldn't be so lauded at Garden, while good-for-a-detention Seifer Almasy will get crucified for this mishap."

She had one card left, currently twirling it between her fingers too fast for him to make out what it was.

Meeting his eyes, she threw it down, and every card against it flipped to her colour. He looked incredulously from the mat to her face, which was twisted into a triumphant grimace, if such a thing existed.

"I win," she said through gritted teeth. "Kneel at my feet."

"So there she is," Seifer said, his mouth slowly curving into a grin. "Telling me to bow to her. But when this is all over – you'll find out soon enough."

.

.

_ATTN: Miss Quistis Trepe_

_ID: 90067_

_Dear Miss Trepe,_

_We are pleased to inform you that as a result of your performance on the annual field evaluation, your instructors have unanimously granted you passage to all Tier 5 courses. Should all remaining prerequisites be completed by the start of the spring term, you will be eligible to apply for next year's SeeD Field Exam._

_Warm Regards,_

_Academic Administration_

_._

_.  
_

**NOTES/ **Geez, sorry that took so long. I've never in my life written a chapter so long and this was the chapter that Refused To Be Written. As for the characters... I'll admit I'm taking some liberties... there's still plenty of time before I get to when the game starts...(even though some parts of this just make me feel like punching myself in the face - and anyone who knows me as a writer knows I'm my own number one hater so I'm taking it easy on myself for the most part. Spelling/Grammar errors are probably abound... I was going to gouge my eyes out reading this OVER AND OVER and still finding them. Got lazy. So I guess I can't spel eithur. Human Knot is an icebreaker game w here you stand in a circle and clasp hands with people opposite you, then try to untangle yourselves into a circle. I don't own anything. As always, thanks for coming~


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